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All
Day in Shoes
In other lives, we are somewhere
north of Bristol -- getting up each morning
to the usual estates,
their lawns, their uniformed gravel,
which we carry about with us
all day in shoes -- those little arks
we call home. We like to be reminded
of this -- our grave palaces
where the pianos wait -- their velvet hammers
asleep in the old furies
of the hour. It is what we leave behind.
What we think about on crowded platforms.
All those tiny preludes
teething inside us -- all that music
forcing its way into our general bodies.
How lucky we are -- to carry
like a vibrating fork -- like a wasp
pushing its warm sword
through our abdomens -- this delirious needle.
We walk the narrow streets to offices
where our phones live --
where they speak to us all afternoon
of important things. We like the sound traffic
makes outside our windows --
the horns of business -- the steady horns.
And the stones in our shoes --
we like to feel them down there
working things out -- those little homes.
We like to carry them around with us --
little obituaries, little saints.
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