Please don’t forget to be
a little in love with everything
surrounding you this evening, here
for now and only that, weep
for the orange tabby who nests
and revels toward your heartbeat,
ribcaged, but never reveals
the secrets of its singing, paws
pressed, tender, into flesh, sheathing
the sharp, instinctual wild
for this lamplight nap.
You are thirty-six, cradling
three dozen reasons not to
trust the luster of just
any literary notion, but
go on, make poetry of
the mundane miracle of
life and all its unlikelihoods,
can you believe we get to
exist together, you lift your
glass at an Applebee’s, laughter
as everybody’s chaser.
One day, unknowing, you will
go on your final run, that
familiar rise and rhythm and
thunderous bloodstream, so
loop, twist those shoestrings
like a ritual, a prayer, a dance –
the Earth steadily spun
‘neath the needle of your
devoted watch, let the
infatuation hold you, sold,
quiet embarrassment of riches,
everywhere, the cinema pales
in its desperation to capture,
run your hands over everything,
everything right this second.
michael king 