Breakfast, the most important poem
So far, pockets are good
for carrying bits of money
and dead spiders in tissue
to look up who they are. I wish
I could take puddles with me
to the diner and have my eggs
sunny side up with old rain. The best
I can do is anoint my forehead
with yesterday’s blessing and try
to hear wind sleeping in the cedars
before I go. Instead I hear the river
sleep-walking to the sea. What else
can’t I carry? Lightning, in or out
of a bottle is two different beasts,
and both horses and hours
sleep in the nude and are too wild
to be possessed. I’ll do the crossword
and if I’m lucky, seven down
will be an infinitely lettered word
for “the green that is the color
of desire.” I would never come
to anyone’s dream
or wake empty handed, even if all
my hands carried were my hands.
