Cow, for instance, might hook itself
like a horseshoe around a fencepost.
Chair might land on a cat, try to
assimilate. Chickadee could shudder
loose, to discover itself staid, roomy,
with a two-car garage. The ones
left behind? Vaporous, probably
afraid, not yet knowing how to live
inside discontinuities. Meanwhile,
cow would quite naturally be grafting
itself as efficiently as possible to
the fencepost, upright, unflinching,
drawing no flies. Like the rest of us,
it would be willing to go for a small part
of the truth, a little more onomatopoeia,
a little less floating. Try to think of it:
your name, the one you’ve repeatedly
handed out to strangers, now landed,
say, onto the huge steel patio grill.
“I’ll just throw these burgers on the
Maryann,” someone might say. And you—
the you that’s running on empty—
would be moving like a rumor among
named objects, not unnoticed entirely
but treated with the maneuvering
of the other guests who know they
must know you but can’t quite
recall . . . Makes you want to hang on,
doesn’t it? It does, me. To admit to myths,
vow beliefs you never thought you’d
settle for. That’s the part of you that
wants to live inside mere obedience
forever, place the salad fork on the outside,
pass the potatoes clockwise. But then,
suppose there’s the lightness beginning
to come on, incredible continents
inside you, rising and breaking apart,
the voice you never knew was yours.
Suppose it’s so good it has no name.