Morning Walk, 10/19/14

I pass a house every morning

with walls that contain more life

than my whole outside world.

I always try to siphon some of it away

for myself, but I can’t hold it.

It shines away on the air.

I am not a good thief.

This treasure is too valuable for me.

I have taken 96 steps, and seen

half as many cans of beer, crushed

and gleaming in the grass.

Both our mouths

fill with howls, and all of our walls

shake when the elders

invite themselves back.

I think your house is bigger,

for what it's worth.

Maybe we are both structurally unsound.

When I stood at the top of this hill a month ago,

I loomed long down its slopes.

I’m at the bottom now,

and not much has changed.

The earth shrank as I did. You’re

still all the way up there, holding

my perspective hostage.

I’m sure I had plenty of time

while I was walking down Walnut Street,

but there was new graffiti under the bridge

and new colors in the trees

and I got completely lost

in how things of great beauty

imitate each other.

Maybe I am a good thief.

I do not test this hypothesis

while shopping for groceries.

I tried to capture some light

from a squirrel without a tail.

I thought you would like to study its bones,

even at a distance, to reconstruct it

as much as it would let you.

What will the people

who rumor our memories into form

assume that we were born with?

My backpack is large with supplies

to survive a long winter.

It alternates between carrying

food and carrying books. I never

know which is waiting, but

when the snow falls, wherever I am trapped,

I will reach past its bared teeth

and hope to find your hands

handing me those riches.

I will give them back.

We can share.

The sign on the bar I pass on the way home

says “OPEN EARLY.”

It has been closed for seven weeks.