Toward the top of the hour,
he stood on the floor
of the hospital room
and looked her in one eye.

One eye
looked back
as blue as a wound
or a memory.

Her memory fell into
a cavern and landed softly
on stony ground, untouched
and unmarked by rocks.

Those rocks rose and fell,
rose and fell as if
waves willfully tossed them at her skin
and caught them as they returned.

He stood in the doorway
of a hospital room
and counted those rocks —
one, two, three — as they fell

ordinarily on a linoleum floor
and clattered as they landed
on a memory, on her skin;
her skin, her malleable skin.

He watched them for hours
as they fell as stars fell upon her.
Turned away crying, crying out.
He watched them fall. He watched,

and sobbed himself dry.

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

“I don’t know what it takes to be chosen;”
an arresting line
from a song on the radio.
I don’t know that I know either —
sitting
in my accustomed chair, weary
of it, tired of the seesaw,
the up and down of this;
I sit and wonder for hours
why I can’t be chosen.

The guitar next to me? Untouched
and stubborn in its refusal to be played well.
The poems I’ve written? Unread
and mostly forgotten unless I struggle.
The life I live? What of it? My hair is uncombed,
my teeth unbrushed, my beard just this side
of looking unkempt. I look a mess.

“I don’t know what it takes to be chosen…”
well, I will never know, I think.

So I will sit here, unselected. I’ll wait for time
to end for me, for others.
I’ll sit long hours in this ratty chair
waiting for the impossible to happen —
waiting for an unknown choice
to make itself known; so.
I will remain here
breathlessly unsteady, not able
to understand what it means
or what, if any, the available choices are;
perhaps there are none
or perhaps there are a million and one;
perhaps I have done so already.
I sit here waiting to be chosen;
waiting for a wave
to lift me up and carry me away.

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