For Christmas, I always asked

to be raised in a home for future stars

of sitcoms that last three seasons,

no more or less. There'd be one about Jesus

the gynecologist, a NASCAR racer

who could only drive the wrong way,

the suicide of France, and a girl

who fought crime with a jump rope.

In the mirror I'd practice sullen, pensive,

invisible. But no. I got a bike.

A machine gun. A lump of plutonium.

And a 50 in 1 electronics kit from Radio Shack.

You could make a radio with it, of course,

but not a shack. It had a solar cell,

buzzer, speaker, some diodes and transistors,

resistors. I fell in love with it, slept with it,

though not in a sexual way. Eventually

one of us grew up and went to college,

it would send pictures home I still look at

from time to time. My 50 in 1 electronics kit

at a rager, my 50 in 1 electronics kit

doing its first line of coke, my 50 in 1

electronics kit walking home in the rain.

I never understood who took that picture,

how anyone's solitude gets to know

anyone else's. And how do we know who feels

most alone? There's no scale for that

like the Mohs or Richter scales. God

I hate this: another poem

about what's missing. So what's here?

I see my hands, an open book about art,

what appears to be the Earth outside my window,

the part I know best, the little cranny

I hang out in. And every moment is filled

with the chance I could bake a birthday cake

every day. Revolutions can be that small,

that sweet. You'll see. One day

you'll wake up and look at the tornado

of your life and decide to fire

the weatherman, not the weather.

What do I know. Let's leave it at this:

one day you'll wake up. Not to an alarm clock,

not so you can swim the English channel,

not in a fog or haze or city

overlooking the Danube, but to a tone,

a clear, precise tone like the sound

you've always imagined stars would make

if you could put your ear firmly

against the night. And then what --

tell me. I get the feeling

you're an amazing creature

whose plumage has yet to fully unfold.

Half bird half ukelele. Quarter volcano

and three quarters Leonard Bernstein.

I'm so excited about the day now,

this one and maybe the three after that.

Then who knows. We'll see. Baby steps

are for babies. Let's think bigger.

I'm talking strides, leaps.

Hell with that: leaps and bounds.

Why should helicopters

have all the fun? We too

can spin and spin and rise.

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