Daily Archives: August 23, 2011

Shuffle

Apparently,
I exploded
overnight.
My hands cling to
opposite walls
of the bedroom.
My eyes are so far apart,
everything’s in focus
at once on the back screen
of my far-flung brain
which I think is in
a neighbor’s kitchen.
My torso’s still
inert in my bed, though.
I’m afraid to try
my legs on the floor
when I can’t see or feel them —
they may be elsewhere
in the house or in
an adjacent yard,
out of range for the moment.
Strangely I feel no pain
and can’t recall a thing
of how this happened — 
last I knew I was sleeping
to music — qawaali or flamenco
or a Brooklyn based band
with delicate senses
cased in Marshall stacks —
I don’t know, some random mix
sent by stream-gods who
just put it on shuffle and left
for new pastures.
I’m coming awake now
parsing my luck,
trying to understand
how I’ve become at once piecemeal
and sanely whole
in a land that just wants
clean streets and no parts
strewn about 
to make the citizens uneasy
in their current orientation.