A Model Year (Part 1 of 5)

The ground shifts but no one notices the spinning.
No one notices the stop light or the time I said no.

Three years time folds into a single instant.
Structures re-build themselves & everyone moves forward.

Always wanting what we can't have, we create tension
one word at a time. Pulling the narrative away until we're lost

& it's lost, left behind in the restaurant or on the subway.
The little bird in the tree re-builds its nest, the cat

watches through the window, wanting. Always wanting
what we can't afford, some leisure time or a casual hello.

Attempting to fill an empty space with anything:
yesterday's news, photographs, a box of buttons &

loose thread. Trying to keep my eyes open after a bad dream.
Don't let me fall again. There's only so much a body can take

but still stupid desire. To attempt a composition, a theory
of migration. Hands gathered in the lap, syntax folding

in the mouth. This testament to a year, a document
of your travels. Something to fill the space.

* * *

Something to fill space but still the body waits.
Attention shifts & fills itself with birds in the distance,

a car horn, children throwing rocks in the street.
In the distance, an echo. Thought interrupted by

phone lines. To create structure out of broken pavement,
a cup of coffee or any welcoming thing. Move forward

without hurt. Build your day around re-setting the clocks:
rise & fall & compile a new grocery list.

Sweep the floor on Sundays. It's easy to fall in a dream.
Easy to confuse foolishness for generosity, a bathtub

for a sensory deprivation tank. One day you wake
& everything has changed. Time has erased so much,

taking from you all the people you once loved.
Each movement becomes measured, how

you reach for the change in your pocket.
It's easy for the body to peel after it has been burned.

Easy to push forward & no one will notice
how you reach for change & the leaves turn.

* * *

No one will notice when you fall. The ground
shifts & the pavement catches up with you, meets

your chin. And when it happens, the body ages.
Ten years pass but you think instead of youth.

Afternoons spent dirty & riding bikes, tin cans
tied to tree branches. Where once there was a we

there is now an I, an imagined you.
Where once there was a witness to distance,

time folds into an envelope. I am trying to step
outside the body, for the body to push forward, always.

To take a command & go without injury. As if
following orders were as easy as brushing your teeth

or any domestic thing. To make a space for one's self.
The cat asleep in the window. A new set of silverware,

pictures to frame for the walls. Comfort in the most tedious
of things. A way to make the time pass.