SELF/HELP

I have a hostage code, a panic button, motion detectors, sensors

The dryer has run all day, I can’t find my checkbook

The new light bulbs (so I am told) will last forever

 

The Windex seems to brighten the bathroom mirror 

I decide to plant four bonsai plants and see them (possibly) grow from seed

Developers bulldozed the two adjacent decrepit houses 

 

Three feral cats now have no place to go

I lost my gray gloves on yesterday’s commute

And I loathe my body most times (as much as the self)

 

A body can be seized by emergency

I can creep up the wall finger by finger plus

I recently was told a cow has four stomachs

 

Even the ancient Egyptians must have felt

Dread, while watching a creeping shadow on the sundial

 

CATALOGUE

Never have I mentioned so many, feelings

Organized from low to high

As if internet shopping. I sort

I filter, I can (let’s say) select a drop-down bar

Select: Relevance – – – – what might surface equals:

every one

RETREAT, 2020

A full sun clamors down the day a dish from a cupboard, deciding to jump 

A leaf scurries across the dry summer driveway—gnats waft kindly into my face 

 

I walk to pick from my neighbor’s blueberry bushes (such old plants)

The small forest surrounds me with wisps of air and their touching branches

 

Time to breathe, a body in chokeholds, in masks, in this perfect sun

Our world is only my momentary outer world:

Where a tree in wind is a creaking door, and a runaway leaf, a mouse