I’ve grown obsessed with preservation,
fold bedsheets crisply as unread books, stop clocks,
search for signs of eternity when buying produce.
If I shift my gaze to familiar faces and objects
with simplicity and without aspiration, I can stare for
hours and none of them will change. That which moves
away from me isn’t necessarily afraid and that which
moves toward me is not always in love, I’ve learned
to say with cautious honesty, surrounded as we are
by the cavalcade of powers and lights and agencies,
some of which I’m for but also some
I am against – a happy coincidence I can be
both at once. Of happiness, I forget what I have done
so imagine several occasions for it. They have many
likenesses, are each alike in part or whole, like most
of what’s beyond my grasp. They’re nameless as seconds.
They envelop, in their inane, fog-like disregard for details,
the bulk of what’s transpired. Once I could conjure,
They take it without prejudice. They alter
something crucial in me as easily as conjugating
verb tenses. They confiscate my recklessness,
replacing it with refinement of taste. They take
their time. But they mustn’t take my island.
It’s all I have left to remind myself. The weather
here today is exactly as I remember it yesterday,
as mild as the week before. I’m convinced
this is remarkable, that this slight breeze is here
while the island remains, is theirs, too, but wondrous,
because it is. It is a perfect day for a swim.