How long has it been since
you played a CD over and over
then when a friend mentioned it tepidly,
you raved and waved a boning knife
and had to go hide in the graveyard
until it all blew over? How long since
you had a sandwich so transcendent
you turned into a snowflake and when spring came,
your whimpering joined the whimpering of other
melting snowflakes? How long since
you took the part of a daffodil,
blossoms filling your mouth? Remember
your first French kiss and a railroad
ran through the backseat and a yellow
dress was a paring of the sun? A horse
galloped up in the moonlessness
and you stood absolutely still. Ants
with black heads and red thoraxes
bit you awake in your sleeping bag
under a mulberry tree like angry
Aztec gods. Remember putting up
signs in the rain for a cat that never
came back and the ocean throwing up
gooey bodies of jellyfish after too wild
a night and immediately feeling better?
Oh, is there anything more enjoyable
tha,n someone else’s hangover while
waiting for flights back from a wedding
to all over? Maybe tracking an inkling
through a field of giant sunflowers,
maybe trailing a crow who’ll make you
immortal or at least pull a thorn
from your paw. How long since
you held a microphone to wind coming
from a cave and the tape, slowed down,
amplified, sounded like a choir?