I Left While the Light Looked Normal
The rules are collapsing, but my bowl still works.
I’m eating soup from a government paper, folded.
My spoon? Also made of words.
My neighbor cuts his hedges while the courts disappear.
I water the fig tree, remind it, Don’t eat the news.
The fig says, I used to be a city on fire too.
Someone sold off the government groups.
Someone told me to make more sense.
The CDC is now a flea market.
The EPA? A birdbath.
I sell my anger through burned down candles.
The flame bends towards online replies.
The wick cries at my tether.
I didn’t ask to see the future. No tomorrow. Yet.
I just want to be aware enough to leave in the quiet.
But the room grew teeth, and I became a door frame.
Now people ask:
How do you always know when the storm’s arriving?
I don’t.
I watch the ants.
They’re smarter than the Senate.
I water my roof.
I feather the entrance–and exit.
I speak in languages that don’t get you burned.
I’m not afraid.
I’m open, moving my mouth through the clouds.
And somewhere in a mansion of paper,
a man lights a match.
Not all men, but always a man.
And somewhere in a house of living trees,
a woman already understands.
Bait
He didn’t pray, baited hooks
instead. Didn’t kneel, squatted
down to talk
to dogs until
they felt safe enough
to trust him.
Let me pet them.
I followed his footsteps
across pine needles,
in the writings of moss,
how to climb the thinnest limbs
without falling off.
He showed me
how to walk so snakes
moved back, gave a nod
like reverence.
Showed me which buds
were edible, which to lick
nectar from
if I ever wandered off, lost
and needed sweetness
to hold onto.
He never said,
You’re good enough.
You can be anything
you set your mind to.
Just gave me
a worm, watched me
set the hook,
suck my fingers clean.
He didn’t speak about
freedom. About people
who’d stab me in the back later.
Just showed how
to be still.
How to wait
while dark water
pens its eddies,
figures out
what’s coming up.