Listen: that is air;
                   that is birdsong;
                              the total weightlessness
of freedom without consequence
felt not even in the moment before
it flees, but once its residue breathes
a small signal, whispering, "Listen!"

Now hear: that is mind;
                            second self;
                                   the Thing that chides cautiously,
"Life is an intricate system of Dominoes,
             and you are as the first block in the series.
                        No sweet moment goes unnoticed by the universe."

--and I am eternally at the ready
to invite some awful Punishment
into my world, should I choose
this small happiness.  Ah,
is that what you'd have me believe?

The air is too cool, the birdsong
too bright, and the streets
too clean and white that I might
ere long make my leave.  Not yet,
not yet.

Listen, voice,
           Listen, psyche,
                       Listen, Thing: today, I take no heed of you!

In a white mug, first
the water looks pure
or like nothing at all

then

I lower the bag
of tea leaves into it
observing the change:

behold.  White layers
of consciousness foam
and swirl, expanding;

outward they spin
like the proverbial
spider's web, growing.

The water turns amber
slowly.  I notice
my painted nails again.

I thought it had
some relevance--
this metamorphosis--

but

I guess I just like
to drink hot stuff.
Represses the crying.

geese are gorgeous
but raucous and cruel
selfish fowls
small-brained fools

grackles are ugly
but travel as friends
it wouldn't be awful
to live among them

One potted plant perched here; and there, a fern hung;
and by the bed, one skinny rose.  Tenant bathes
in lavender oil, feels mundane regardless, feels little,

thinks nothing.  Later she will cause herself to rise,
commanding apathetic muscles to take up boxes
of things never alive and, to her, meaningless,

close her eyes and remember soil wet and moving
on her hands.  In truth she should not be, was never meant
to be a croon--a simple prole--but this is what

she is today, and this is what she does
today, and if it were still yesterday,
the gardener'd be finger-deep in speckled dirt

and water and pots and all things colorful and living
most of all.  But her boxes make her money and her
boxes are her duty and her duty is her labor and

her labor is her strife.  Her meaning lies in what she does
today, and if it were still yesterday, the gardener'd
be finger-deep in speckled earth and oily mirth,

and spirit-filled with joyous song, and working
every moment, and gut awash with overwhelming
fantasy-belief that her work might be immortal,

but her meaning lies in what she does today, and
if it were still yesterday, she may as well not be a human,
for none can be so unyielding to the authority of time

or else a hypocrite.

Immediate aftermath of a storm:
dark roads marked wet;
air black, thick, stretched;
mud alive with thriving worms.

The morning next proceeding:
sky gray, fog higher;
streets appearing somehow whiter;
nature imbued with greenest green.

I placed my bread to heat for just five seconds--
behold: when I came for it, it wasn't alone.
A mayfly had set up camp (so to speak)
with my wheat bread, my most favored
Amish-baked, sliced-before-my-own eyes bread;
and when I say it "set up camp," I do not
mean anything pleasant.  I do mean six thin legs
sprawled long and broken when discovered
and perhaps some melted insides; who's to say?
Something turned inside of me and I'm certain
I grimaced at least a little, and took my plate back,
thinking, disturbed just slightly.  How had I not
seen the fly?  It couldn't have touched the bread--poor thing--
just rested there, unknowing, to be slaughtered.

"Mom...Mom...Ahh, uhh, Mom!  Mom?"
(mother assesses circumstances, unceremoniously takes a napkin
to my victim, and introduces his corpse to the garbage)
"He probably wasn't in there when I...right?"
--"It probably was."
"But five seconds couldn't have killed him."
I know I am wrong
as I feel the warm grains of my prize.
(mother gives a long look and says...)
--"If it heated the bread, I'm sure it heated the bug."

I took my bounty anyway--the bread, that is, mind you--
and went to eat it absentmindedly, but found that
now impossible.  Sigh.  I also found myself
staring, long and hard, then, at half of a piece
of glorious, Heaven-breathed wheat bread,
and suddenly realized that I could not discern
whether or not I was enjoying it.  ******.
And then I tried to reassure myself by chiding
inwardly, "You're just afraid of insects
irrationally," but maybe I actually
felt that the blood of an
innocent life was on
my hands.

Why are they so stupid? I ask
no one really, fighting revulsion,
grasping for blame.

Alas, I finished eating but felt rightly robbed
of some essential part of the experience.
Yet, such is life.