A Word I Haven't Found Yet

From the backseat

My mother tells me

when she picks me up from the train station

that I’m supposed to fall in love at 27

she tells me this because a psychic tells her this

when she’s trying to find someone who can hear

her brother from the other side

 

My father kicks me out of the passenger seat

because the backseat of the car makes him sick

He says we have to call the town to tell them

it floods in front of our house and the basin

is overflowing

 

My mother replies that he ought to tell them

the street lamps don’t work and haven’t for years

and he doesn’t believe her

I also know the street lamps don’t work

but sometimes they do when I stand under them

 

I don’t think I’m magic or special or anything

but it makes me think our bodies are really electric

and magnetic-we’re flat out crazy not to acknowledge

all the invisible forces that govern our bodies

I think it’s weird people don’t think or talk about it more

and most people think it’s weird that I do

 

My mother tells me Sal died-her best friend Nancy’s dad

I immediately remember when Tessie, his wife, died

at her wake Nancy’s son Anthony asked me out for sushi

I glanced behind him at the casket silently laughing to myself

I could only think “everyone grieves differently I guess”

 

My mother and father fight over which lane

she should have gotten in and how she always

misses the streets we’re supposed to turn down

she always replies everything happens for a reason

these thoughts always halt as we pull into the driveway

 

Now

Don’t think too hard

I tell myself

as I leave my baggage

for somebody else to claim

I’ll buy what I need new

show myself on the outside too-

I’ve changed-now

painted by more color

between all the black and grey

 

Created for space

Panthalassa and Pangea were waging a war on themselves

and split their hopes and dreams into different parts of the hemispheres

at a time when hemispheres didn’t have a name at all

because they didn’t exist and they didn’t have people or language

to explain them or make a distinction between the two at all 

 

Out of lungs

Sometimes you have to say things out loud

so it’s known-yes, for certain

this feeling has found a place

to occupy in a vibrating soundscape 

 

Hear this

Do you ever think about sound

how it surrounds your body-

doesn’t just leak into your skull

but licks your limbs and skin

what if natural sound

like rain and thunder

sounded like piano scales

on other planets

not artificial but

just the way things are

the wind like soft trumpets

whirring at the lips