Is there a name for that state
between what one could do
and what might no longer
be possible? I swing there
like a tipped silver weight
at the end of a chain, describing
different widths of circles.
If I were a word I’d want instead
to be breath, or breathing—
yet I haven’t a raft to hold
sufficient provision, nor a windfall
to fill it. I dream of broken toilets
and magnolia petals on the ground,
of a woman who sits in the dark
as the moon grows full, waiting
for someone to come and keep house.