To joy

Head dangling from the stem of your neck, think of bells, the weight
of lilac blooms clustered around a stalk that bows yet doesn’t let them go.
Hinge forward from the hip, then open up in reverse swan dive. In a dream,
my arms fill with other than air: a wild bouquet, its scent urging me on

to an appointment I know I could be late for, because I am often accused
of worrying about the mundane— from the French mondain, meaning of
this world
, but also orderly. And my love stood at one end of a hallway,
gesturing for me to come: It will be just us and our vows. Yet how

are there those who don’t seem to have any uncertainty about the future,
about anything like consequence for whatever they might do, whatever door
they might break to enter? Through a keyhole, see how they sweep arcs
without hesitation, but shade their eyes against the sun’s gold downpour.

A speck gleams across emerald lawns, blue water. Our living and dying:
arrows notched toward what’s human, what we remember of the country of joy.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Liability.

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