I love
this misfiring of neurons in which I properly
understand nothing
– Jim Harrison (“River IV”)
All the loose wires on the floor, the tangle
in dark and dusty corners, saved or forgotten,
left raw or undone when the synapse jumps,
when the air is right, crisp before a rainstorm
or just after, inhaled just enough to forget who and when
we are, where the outside takes us in and we become one
of the naked oaks waving on the run, like woodland children,
dry leaves at our feet where we built forts, dug foxholes
towards China, deep and wide enough with GI shovels
to sink a tractor beneath great walnut trees, ammo
the gleaners missed when I stuck the pitchfork in your arm,
the purple dot on its underside, short of through.
Bare wires of emotion, all the incomplete circuits set aside
for these moments, if we’re lucky, fire into a fleeting
lightshow when all or nothing makes unusual sense.
for my sister, Ginni
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