Micro-Miracles
Photograph by Jailli
chemically, your molecules cannot stop moving--
(in early october at 3:17 pm
when the beech leaves
just barely glow yellow in the
middle and the breathless wind runs
through until every leaf
is in ecstatic motion and even the
light is humming in gold)
and they move and move and
move
grocery day
these days, there is too much
empty space to be had and we drive
too quickly to the grocery store to buy lettuce
and 1.50 gum. but reaching out
our hands toward the slick green heads
the mist over the produce blesses each
wilting finger and everything is now,
the moment is here, we breathe sharply in
and hold it close, letting our hands
linger
beneath the water, shining.
tableau of almost-born storm
when you smile your teeth
are lilac. the air is turning over
in its sleep, slowly, with
the sound of blood-rushed ears held
to the pillowed dim. everything is
purple. the light hangs over our
shoulders like summer clothes, draping
lavender down to humming
legs. the rain holds off for
four seconds and the purple makes
the driveway and our hands and
every smallest thing blush.
ant
sometimes, in the summer, sitting
in warm grass, with your legs
bare beneath the sun, a tiny ant
creeps along the skin and
reaching to place it back in the grass you
inhale to hold it in your palm for an
instant and the touch of its gossamer
legs is something like angels so that,
for this instant, beneath the wavering sun
in the hot grass, you are holding something
so vast and yet light that you feel
every sensation whispered along
your hand and you hold and hold
until you are red with heat and
closely held within the grass and
the sky, suspended.
eventually, there will come a time
always, there is a wild strawberry
somewhere, glossed red and
smoothly formed beneath a drape
of light. always, it cannot be eaten
except it is still there, fresh
and a bit warm as you walk past:
turning around again, peering at it
with clouds in your eyes.
and you let it ripen all afternoon so
this evening, maybe, if everything
floats electrically into place,
it might be sweet as the streetlights come
on all around.
work meeting / apotheosis
today on a zoom meeting the 10 am sun
seeped hot even through the curtains
and through the screen i watched
as it fell onto my face & stuck & stayed
remaking me a prismatic blur with skin
so warm and so bloodflushed i could
feel the heat reflecting back wildly,
wall to wall to window to skin to sky
to sun to camera to skin to skin to skin until
it all merged, becoming
a vast heartsick thrill of light&body
and the brilliance doesn’t go away
and doesn’t go away.