And yet, somehow, the day remained open.
The bark you touched finished your thoughts
like a stiff drink. Sometimes, all you could think about
was a merry-go-round. Sometimes your eyes saw grey
and looked like wood smoke. But this day was the color
of being pulled on, of driving too far East. A house, a house,
another house, and then a song about a house. Or just one verse,
a section of brick wall in an old cartoon colored darker than the rest,
how you always knew it would crumble. How you often saw it,
the cliff giving way beneath you or the rotten board of a bridge
snapping halfway across a lake full of alligators. How you passed
your sight on to me. So now, when I’m driving, I’m forced to see
the berm as a cradle, the milkweed glowing with monarchs, a crown
that only my neck could wear, and the beautiful blue meaning of it all
when it’s suddenly my turn to crumble through the windshield
and ruin a perfectly late September afternoon.
You're so welcome!
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