An Afternoon Can Last Forever
Today I cannot leave the couch, gaze fixated on
a screen. Weigh this illness against that one, take
another test. A brain like mine clings, needs to churn
thoughts until it feels clean, only done when it decides
to be done. I think that after I die, I will return as a kaleidoscope,
an endless merry-go-round of splendor casting new rainbows
everywhere I turn. The man I love breaks my train-wreck
thoughts, hand outstretched to coax me to the car.
We parallel railroads and rivers around the countryside
when sun pastels the clouds, those suspended crystals
that float toward their own disappearing. They dream of
new ways to be loved, to be held in a warm hand up to
a delicate eye, become greater than the sum of their sky,
yearn for a body like mine as they dismember and re-member
their own bodies without fire, an eternal dancing light.
