Tango

I wish for
so many things
real and unreal —
I wish

the spin of the planet would stop
for a split second and that I could
be alive for the split second
before the shift of schedule slew me —

I wish a beaver would enter the room
and discern a palette in the wood
and discourse mightily and learnedly
about the nuances of grain on the tongue —

I wish all floors would drop off their posts
and there would be minutes of wonderment
at the warring senses of floor beneath my feet
and the tempered joy of nothing there —

I wish for no more plodding or trudging
between meanings in the course of one day
as I tried to muddle through weariness and
dread and plain ordinary feeling —

I wish light had a sense of purpose
I wish light had a rumor of coordination
with the dark and the in-between
I wish light had a mission worth understanding

I wish I was OK
I wish the senses and the sensibility aligned
I wish I recalled how to cry out
I wish joy and its counterparts knew how to tango

as if in a dance or in a dance
where the keys started and stopped their playing
to the leg lifted tight along the other leg
and neither fell

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T