I was a bump in the day.
I walked fifty miles of aimless, looking
in each pavement crack for the faces of angels,
turned blind corners with eyes wide open,
sat quietly at out-of-service bus stops,
for an event I didn't wish to attend,
nor could remember the invitation for.
Noon spun on a dry axis,
each second needing the grease of
a troubled thought and an injured sigh,
and the leaves dived without noise, just as expected,
from the maples along the street
and the eucalypts upon the mountain.
Far off in me, somebody cried your name:
it was your name flying from a mouth
as names are prone to do; it
was soft as butter- one could spread it from the air.
It was cried as a magnolia blossom cries hallelujah, or -
a sound held in an envelope from a long-lost lover -
to be opened in perfect silence;
to be torn perfectly open.
From where does it come?
That is the work, the work that I surrender to
in the underbelly of each day,
to turn those stones, to seek
that perfect vein of language
which you bleed from.
I was a bump in the day,
a split seam in the universe.
I walked fifty miles of aimless, past
the same trees, the same houses,
the churches with their doors shut,
the shooting galleries with their junkies
and their bottle queens,
avoiding mirrors, avoiding reflections,
avoiding myself, avoiding the wolf of your name,
walking harder, walking faster,
trying to sweat you from my body:
for I have heard a rumour
that I may still love you,
and am torn perfectly open.
Take care, keep safe, and stay beautiful,
Amor y Paz,
