gratitude
for Foercia Molloy

to be both-legged, spry. pleased
to know plaid from damask. laughing
a little at the ad for sugarwater and cognac,
the train tunnel smelling entirely of sweat
and fish. give us this day. thirsty for metal,
the face which is the face you've earned.
both-armed, releasing. to kiss until the kissing’s a cavern
you can paint your name in, light a small fire and sleep.
to spring rhythm in nightclubs and defer all advances.
to whistle at streetlights until they flicker
with recognition / it is all body. it is all body.
to give yourself Christmas on consecutive Saturday mornings
to be certain enough about one thing to be hated / you have
no stones. your glass house is a temple built entirely
of acrylic where you worship the medium-sized gods
governing the quotidian, just enough toothpaste, a new
camouflage t-shirt, dust. to be dumb lucky enough to have
enough. to be molecularly sound but know nothing
of neutrinos though they skim through your bones and the Empire State
with equal alacrity. to know only vaguely that dark matter not only
surrounds us but proves all currently accepted principles of physics
wrong. to trust gravity regardless to rope you to the planet
like a couch to the roof of a Chevy or a toddler flat asleep
on the shoulder of a woman leaving the train late
on a Tuesday / to be sighted, even if bifocal. to be touched
awake, to be hectored into believing touch is more
than mythology pretending to skin, to grieve. to paint mustaches
on the monsters in the closets in your dreams, to swear
that noise is only the building settling around you like skirts
and not today’s newsprint front page / to be alone. often.
feeling your breath blossom like fog over the pier
as the sun drowns to rise again like a saviour in a fable
to have work, be it the breeding of penguins or sewing the last bow
on every kite-tail in the factory / to know the number of seconds
between thunder drop and lightning approximates its distance
and hold to that / wounded and rebounded as we all live, to beat
vivid, to know refuge, rush of asphalt and you steady headed towards it.