Coming Clean, or I Need To Unshoulder This Heavy Load, or Work in Progress

Thundrin' Jaysus, did you think I'm dead?

Repair. Construction crews necessary on the 8th floor. Bring in the mortar, the bricks, the trowel. Play & replay words like love, growth, saplings, rebuilder, Work in Progress over & over & over again in your mind, on your lips, in his little ears, typed out in neurotic habits your fingers working the letters on a ghost keyboard. Tell him secrets, like You too are my favorite and One day you will try to light ants on fire with a magnifying glass.

Make him promises, S. says, Promise him something for his third birthday just to see if his subconscious captures these moments.

So I whisper to him late night in the NICU ward rocking chair: And on your third birthday we'll build an ant farm out of found glass & alley pallets. We'll go to the beach for some sand & dig around in someone's yard or the boulevards for the ants. Then you can watch them tunnel in and out of their own designs.

Tunnel. Pathways. Mending. Stitching. You can think to yourself This Hurts, or you can think I Breathe In, I Breathe Out, my yoga teacher's voice says. Over & over & over again. Repeated stories of The Fall. Methodologies of hidden codes. Tunnelling. Reworking. Rebuilding. Bring in the neurons, the Okinawan scales, the shameless beatific misery & beauty of Macedonian gypsies, and breathe.

Just so’s you know
On
One side of town
Two children worm tunnels
In a sand dune
For Hot Wheels while
On
Another side of town
Two children build a dune
Out of piles of toy cars
Cards and pick up sticks.