My Sparrow

There is the torch and the only thing

That will prevent us from using it

Is whether or not we can allow

Jellyfish in the otherwise

Crystalline surf. It would be easy

To dismiss this view as beautiful and walk away

Because it is buggy and we forgot

The spray, to cancel the conversation

Because its ease is perilous with conjunctions,

To not touch because the sky would

Separate from the sky and the mothership

Would fall through with a banner

Waving in a language we wouldn’t

Understand though the meaning is

As clear as these intercontinental

Contrails hatching mackerel sky

Saying we are full we are full

Of sound and fury, we are signifying

Nothing. Damned universal law.

Damned categorical imperative

Elbowing its way between my hands

And your face. The sparrows again

Exploding against windows

As a circle of men sitting outside

The cafe while away their intentions

With invisible motor tics they can’t

Even feel unless the right empire of light

Covers every last inch of them

And brings to the surface the names — 

Those loves they chose

To stable. And there it is:

The choice — if only the metaphor

Were more complex if I could only

Adverb away my existence

And say what a remarkable Sunday

This is a perfect Sunday

And turn my breath to stone.

I’ve done it before, I spoke

The language of sweating cavern walls

And electric light. But I won’t go there again.

We are all and only our distances

And when we touch that is what we touch.

Our messy shelves. Our sullen privations

And overabundance of lemons.

Our grief, our mountains and fields

And rivers of grief. Our dismissals

And the love we ignore when we don’t run

After the sparrows because the sparrows

Will fly away. My sparrow, fly away if you have to

But know that I am coming.

I am low in the grass. I am burning

With patience. I am every song.

I know all the math in the shore

Says you shouldn’t but my distance

Is yours if you want it. And it is yours

If you don’t. Dandelions and honeysuckle

Surround me, the world’s ineluctable fire

Is looking right at me, and I am making my stand.