Something Like We Did IV
By Tim Seibles
Space is the place.
—Sun Ra
Wind in the leaves
of the live oak next door
and the June bugs
click-click
hard bodies
hitting the screen.
Couldn’t tell how much
time had passed.
Light from traffic
on the ceiling.
Late that sound
in the sky soft.
Thinking out loud
then inside my head:
they were still there—
the way they walked
that bright flicker
in their chests.
Sometimes I have believed
I don’t belong
here— I mean
it’s not just
the American insanities
but everywhere: the sense
of having been left
on Earth
with no explanation—
a mouse dropped in a maze
Source: Poetry (September 2023)