I see the bricks beneath my feet and
there are cities in the grout. Above
me is construction scaffolding where
humans climb like aphids suckling the meat
that comes off a rib-eye steak
before the marrow is used to flavour
a broth studded with stars. I walk
beneath a puddle
so vast it could be called a sky.
The world is so big
and sometimes I wonder if I am small.
Every time I go under anaesthesia I believe
I wake up a different person
like how I do when I dream—
and every day I look for mountains
in the veins of trees by climbing inside
the tubes that comprise blades of grass
growing at the base and see
cells with mitochondria prisoners of war
under siege by fungus like Greece
and I wonder if the if the delay in my watch's second hand is the lag
before satellite signal from down there
pings me back.
And then I snap to, because the sky is a bungee jumper
unspooling into space, and I think I understand
why I am conscious at every given moment
it's because there is always something inhabiting me
like how my foot inhabits the city in the grout
or how the sky pins me beneath its heel
and how space wraps around the planet
and squeezes so tight that our atmosphere has sympathy
for the barotrauma of divers.
I think my body has many layers inside
and I think this city is a mote of dust
watched by ants.
Written on my phone
on my way from the train station
to a home that never really was
for the last time.
Alert and Oriented x4
page revision: 6, last edited: 16 Jul 2024 16:17