A Man In The Holes

If you go out this morning
and walk the street you live on
will you be comfortable or will you
look over your shoulder
constantly? Will you instead look
at the hydrangeas next door or perhaps
a long stretch of green grass leading back
to a new house you never saw before?
Will you be alone on the sidewalk
or will there be someone walking toward you?
Will it be sunny, overcast,
or will there be rain?

You think you need to answer in the second before
you open the door to an outside world
that may have changed since you first awoke;
may have changed utterly due to fire and smoke
or a deluge of some sort. Perhaps so,
perhaps not, but you want this world unchanged
except for the littlest things and you must take a breath
and then will it to be so.

You take that crucial inhale
and step out in wild wonder
until you know better

for this existence you created
you don’t believe any more
much like the holes in Jesus’ hands —
you put your hands
on the world and shake your head vigorously; there are holes
or there are none. Which is true? Are you sure?

Maybe both are true and you pass through them
like a walker, a crutch only for others who pass through
to the sidewalk or the verge of a road that leads
somewhere in the rainy sunshine.

Maybe, somehow, you have ceased
the useless progress of being here
and having it be real.

Maybe you can close your eyes
to possibility
and for the second it takes between knowing
and not-knowing, you suspend yourself
to judgement and leave it to itself:
a man in the holes, wondering;

but you step out of the door.

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