“A Dim Capacity for Wings”

We’re not sure you caught that, your

Death, your breath, the bobber still

On the surface, all hands on all decks,

Under the gable you’ll never get wet,

Slabs of water running in the streets,

You wondered about the day someone

Invented the heddle, when loom became

A noun, you said no one was listening,

But listen up, echo time is shorter in

The cubicles, you admire the vowels in

Eero Saarinen, the way they arch and

Fly, shoe to boot to the inevitable slipper,

Clipped hedges, the remarkable guitar

In the same room as the remarkable

Sitar, like all get out, when you awoke

That day to say you are your own vehicle

For understanding, metaphorically

Speaking, not just another catchphrase,

Not a convenience store, bare midriff,

Pay toilet, salmon run, still searching

For the cure for death, so you won’t catch

Hell, and yes we got the gist about yeast,

That you have seen night rise as much as

You have seen it fall, paper clips now that

Paper is gone, you’d rather be writing on

Wax, the moon so out of bounds in daylight,

Fight song, rah-rah, to shoo or not to shoo,

All that is not vanity is still vanity, the U-turn

Waiting to happen, and when you wrote

The word sky the room became spacious, the roof

Off, the windows blown out, but isn’t that

The road desire always takes, open or closed, all the same.

Notes:

The title is a line from poem 1107, “My Cocoon tightens – Colors tease,” from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin.

Source: Poetry (November 2020)