The World’s Arm

A strong, pale wind on the thighs,

it was no seaspray, no AC,

but cold mnemonic, a breath

of spotless decision,

a kind of bulk, a true surface

thickened by foreign pears

as if winter brought its fruit

first to me for approval

before it let December

fill its basket to capacity.

I spoke too calmly for one

who didn’t believe in anything.

Mouth full of pears,

full of promises I’d no way

to speak, much less keep, I tended

to gesture toward a Universal

Field of Grass, hoping to break

as many blades as my wide self

could in one pass. One pass—

but we’re wasted with feeling,

breathing funny and stuck rough

like an IV into a paralyzed arm.

And that’s the World’s Arm

that can’t write anymore,

or sign its name, or pick

the thickness from the trees.

My fingerprints transform

into proboscis, by degrees.