Philadelphia, five years ago ––
wrote a poem in that coffeeshop
about wanting to study my arms
and find them free of scars, and
nothing is the same, so is
everything.
They say we cannot simply sleep,
can only create the conditions
for sleep, dark room, white noise,
blanket, oscillating whirr, and hope
sleep will find us, and
isn’t that also true of love,
just setting up the room
and hoping for the best?
So I run beneath the sun like
a man who is in love with his life
and I remember to tell the stories
that make me laugh, till my
soil and plant seeds for tomorrow’s
flourishing, sand those hard
edges down, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
To let go is to make room, no more
bruises in my stanzas, nothing
sharp nor sweet to say about
yesterday’s characters, just
the exhale of look where we are
and the wonder of
where might this go?
michael king 