Written by Esther Eidenberg-Noppe
After Ross Gay
i dreamt of the hesitantly slammed door giving way to a ripped open wrist / mom saying “now would be the worst time to go / to the hospital” for the bleeding to stop (whether or not it comes with the breath) / i dreamt the racing heart / finally caught up with the freight train speeding past / of plotting claws mistaken for softness, eyes of I.V. drip snake venom and radium / i remembered yesterday they left heaping piles of toilet paper on the doorstep / that i must first have wiped down the plastic with thick layers of tide / that even goodness could poison this sickness / i dreamt an entire lifetime of waiting: for the dam to break, floods to evaporate / knowing which was more likely (even if unfair,) the water knows how to get where it is going (even the lungs.) / i dreamt of eyelids as unhinged door knobs / waiting to be ripped from their sockets, / (meaningless) apologies dangling (like the legs of school children on seat edges / tapping toes to clock ticks before recess,) from the tips of meaningless tongues / saying they are sorry: knowing it is no white flag or red cross for the hurricane of the chest / for what is growing next to the heart: analogies simply also excuses to pretend love out of fear / always waiting for the blood which must spill eventually (somewhere...)
but biking along the beach,
watched a crow drink from a public-use dog water bowl chained to a spigot
remembered water could not only kill but quench a thirst
saw the elderly monk sitting every day atop the same picnic table
facing the waving (puget) sound,
waved and he waved back
(whispered) thank you
passed by a middle aged man roller skating in a closed-off parking lot
watched my mother place childhood stuffed animals in the windows
for neighbor kids on quarantine scavenger-hunts
saw little free libraries stuffed with groceries, string lights hanging in the backyards of strangers,
twelve year old boys shooting hoops in the middle of the streets, neighbors talking from adjacent
garden beds, wind chimes singing from front porches, seafoam sprouting from contented waters,
lungs being lungs
(kept breathing)
i woke to the mercy of the sun
preyed in my wordless way to the wind
with grateful goosebumps and eyes, ears, lips,
drank from the spigot
(whispered) thank you
again.