Calypso

I.

There’s still time to be anyone.

I just have to finish the laundry,

First. It’s the linens that take the longest—

They keep falling into the sand.

Sometimes my brain tries stretching away: like bubblegum

On the sidewalk, begging to hitch a ride on the dirty bottoms

Of somebody’s exhausted Converse. There isn’t much

I can do when this happens.

The brain controls a lot of motor function, after

All. In its’ fruitless endeavor, it’ll drag along my eyes,

Draw the heat from my nose,

Those are two important senses, you know.

And sometimes even folding the linens is too much,

And I have to throw them down into the sand.

And I’ll sit in a still, mossy fountain, until

My fingers go pruney and my mind has found

Me, and a sunbeam warms up my nose.

I just wish that all these mosquitos would get lost.

II.

Whoever said time is linear was only kissing up to a calculator.

This morning I woke cold and underdressed

Atop December’s concrete, though I laid to rest

On July’s honeyed, heated grass. Even the cicadas had left.

I think time is a spiral.

I think a lot of things, but I

Don’t hold onto them for very long.

I think that thinking in the first person

Is so pointless. Who else would I be talking about?

I think I’ll be somebody worth knowing,

For at least a little while; But I’ll have to learn more things

First. For now, I can be aimless and abrasive and dance with

Kitchen knives, because I don’t have any meddling neighbors to object, and

There’s still a lot of time.

III.

It was tomorrow, or maybe last week, that

I had a visitor. Someone that I wanted

To impress. I forgot how to speak and how to dance, but

I laughed at every joke,

Drank from every cup,

And kissed every inch of skin that glistened

Within the range of my lips.

I cooked a feast for us every night. Which he marveled, at

First, about. Though over the third carcass of golden chicken, he declared

His homesickness for the wife’s pre-packaged dinners.

Easier to bring on-the-go, he said.

You see, there were children to raise, monsters to slay.

He was someone with a final destination

And I was just a pitstop.

I was upset when he told me she was an artist

Because that seemed like a lovable quality someone might have,

And I could imagine the pearlescent way he’d look at her,

One that admired before it loved.

I don’t think he even bothered to see my bedroom. And now,

He never will.

I am young and I think I was wrong.

Maybe I didn’t have much time at all;

Maybe if I’d learned how to play the piano or

Remembered to dance, or

Remembered anything at all;

Maybe if I’d stop dropping the—

The linens,

No one would treat me like a passing phase.

Maybe I can be the first choice

In a second life.