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I wake up.
my teachers and mentors and lovers with their hand on
my knee,
well meaning one to ten scales,
my answer – well,
I’m thinking of a new pair of sandals, and
I carved down an orange peel
to see the same fruit I always do –
then saw Jesus on a plate on a Goodwill shelf
and felt a rush of warm memory or a retrospective heatstroke,
but did not collapse! (Hi Jesus,
I said)
I wake up
on a choir trip bus tour of San Francisco.
Cold drinks and watching harbor seals push
their fat bodies against each other.
Sidewalk men with bongos.
I wake up, shirtless and eight years old,
I wake up on my back porch.
Here we are – to imply a whole,
and here we go – to imply, afterwards, a progression.
And here, prepubescent and gnawing an ice pop.
And then, tomorrow,
watering the young tomatoes dad keeps still-potted at the side of the house.
Going to the farmers market just for the honey sticks
and going outside just to look up,
and every day after,
one more reason.
I am asked of how they come,
and from where. Well,
one must imagine Sisyphus whistling,
and what bliss is left in the again of it all.