Going to and from somewhere not far,
I pass a couple of children on scooters
shouting, Ice Cream!
from across the street.
When I dare to raise my eyes to look out
instead of down at my shoes as I walk
I instantly see faces of strangers,
crying- Eyesore. I know they are right.
But nobody is selling what I want.
It does not seem producible.
It is not a house on a corner, the size and charm
of a dormitory, with window treatments.
It is not those shoes my sister likes with the red soles
or sunglasses my mother likes with the diamonds
or the endorphins or the caffeine or the career ladder.
I do not covet Ice Cream, the biggest or best thing,
and I don’t have romance for pipe dreams either.
That is someone's else’s dream,
unexceptional, formless, but probably fulfilling.
I hope I am never fulfilled.
In my hand there’s a digital map that orients me
in a roundabout. I am a breathing oscillating blue dot.
I can’t get anywhere from here.
Why do I not want Ice Cream or summer dresses?
Why do I not want to be out on the town, meeting new people?
Why do I not participate?
I watch people on television, traveling.
I am so scared.
I listen to Neil Armstrong radioing from the moon.
I scan the transcripts over and over of
Earhart circling Howland Island:
We are unable to hear you
to take a bearing.
Intermittent despair- what can you make from that?
I look up to see the sun caught in the tail end trail
of a jet. I wave:
Do you hear my signals.
Please acknowledge.
And then all my thoughts are frostwork and blue
with parachutes and windows on walls
and I am filled with clouds and I can’t see.
We cannot see you.
Now I know I begin and end with images,
how far across this field can my voice spread out,
extend and reach in singing, in screaming?
