2014

The bus revves itself to life 
I glance up to gather in
to a single
sentiment.
A summary of a self folded
in B1: hello, female, elbow
farang. In A1, sunspots speed-talk
decades of seven-day labor and a bandaged hand
crusty-edged, fraying, graying, clasped over
an unread newspaper speaks of now. C1 and D1,
a teenager drapes his arm around his kid sister
and glares out the window. We love one another
but we want to get away.  
Child, affection, teenager.
Cue, habit, reward. And what
when the reward is pain?
I choose it often.
A bird on the fence
prickles neckless routines to compose
sleek for flight.
Life in the world, a triangle:
the bird, the rising sun, the neighbor,
a toddler, bundled, inventing something
as a push toy. Stumbling across friction
early. 6:49 a.m. and I've already lived
in two cities with two men I did not love
to bid on the disappointment of stabbed silences. Something about
thoughts as ripples across a pond. I wake up to start
the difference between my grandmother and myself
a matter of voice, not the tendancy towards
relentless narration. My family has a statement
on everything. I have no desire to fight
so I have thoughts. Last night, I slept to your name
and awoke to it beside me. This is not a metaphor. Like I said,
my reward is often
pain and satellites orbit your inquiries
a dialogue of circles
overlapping, bypassing, arching with pleasure or waves
of burped shudders.
This morning, I mouth my message to the bird, taking off:
Happy New Year.