They’re carrying toward you now
the single yellow flower.
They’re carrying toward you
the lamb that has been slain.
You with your car keys
on a chain with a toy whistle,
the silver traveler’s cup.
Soon you’re going 30 mph
through slush and they’re hardly moving,
barefoot but they’re catching up.
Maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday
when you’re entering withdrawals in the checkbook
or sorting the brown glass from the green
into the magnificent bins.
Sometimes you hear singing
in a language you don’t know.
You stand in a stone carving,
your hand on the head of a winged cat.
Time to check the smoke alarm.
Isn’t that the snow calling you?
Doesn’t the bell ring first inside you
then go searching elsewhere?
How did you get to be so hollow
when you came into this world dense
as a ball bearing? You had a black star
sequined to your cap. You learned
just to brush the crumbs from your lap,
to staple the paper plane on the fuselage
the best place for long, straight flight.
Now you’re checking a single bag.
The person beside you in the exit row
reads a book with nothing in it.
The captain interrupts the movie
about a comic becoming president
to tell you the name of a river
frozen thousands of feet below.
Remember when you pretended
you came back after so long gone,
pretended the story of the pack of dogs
in the graveyard could end any way?
Whatever snagged in your eye
stopped the world but now nothing
stops the world. Its tires spin
in the alley, its newspaper
thwamps against the door. All the scrapes
and scratches and ripping of paper,
still you’re not wholly erased.
There’s your cup in the sink.
Your face in the mirror in a circle
of wiped-away fog. It’s only
Wednesday, early February
but there’s a yellow flower in your cough.