Like someone stepping
from a pair of dirty overalls,
turned inside out on the bathroom floor,
I step from my body.
Words spill out, a pocketful of
nearly, almost, close, rattling on the ground.
I rise up and I am eye to eye
with the ceramic insulators on the power lines.
They glisten and I can see
a fish-eye reflection
of the stony landscape and worn blacktop.
I touch the wire
and the current passes through me.
I float above the trees
like children’s soap bubbles
on a spring day. Everyone I love
is below me. I see the tops of their heads
as they go about their business.
The school bus arrives
and swallows my children.
I am about to join everything,
the way bubbles burst
with a quiet pop, the tiny
strands of soap vanishing into the air.
There are souls around me
pushing, pushing. There is the world
below me, caught by surprise in a spring storm.
There is the ocean embracing each rock.
I look down and can see
the inside of my skull,
the graffiti of dreams,
the rust of education.
Should I come back and inhabit this vehicle?
Under the sign at the Redemption Center
people are returning their bottles,
with the thin sour smell of beer and milk.
Do we reuse the vessel or do we
crush the can so that it becomes something else?
Someone is embracing me
with both arms, whispering,
Come home, all is forgiven.
Am I coming or going?
Between this world and the next
all I can tell you is this:
Something is about to be born.