I've imagined a rainbow being raped
without knowing what evil I'm really afraid of.
Let's say all of it. Let's say every person
is an iceberg, with most of who they are
or what they want obscured from view,
and the ship that runs into that iceberg,
and the cries of people trying not to drown,
and the unlistening stars. Now let's consider
a different notion to sing against this theory.
Every person is a piano being tuned
by a deaf woman who hears with her fingers,
who loves the honesty of wood, who gives half
her bologna sandwich to her dog. It's not
that I love you, since we don't know each other,
I say to myself every day in the mirror.
But I want to love you. I can't remember
at what age I realized the jobs
I was most qualified for — "introverted
fuck up", "metaphorical thumb sucker" —
didn't exist, but when I moved on
to "really good napkin folder" and "player
of drums under water", I started to see myself
as a viable weather system
or a coordinated thrashing of grass
by wind. Do you know the sound
of hundreds of birds taking off
at the same time, like the sky's
drawing in air after holding its breath
for a century? Neither do I
but I'm determined to be that sound.