Ezra Pound
WHAT PHYSICS CAN’T EXPLAIN
Today in yoga, my sweat was dripping up. I felt the drop climb from my jaw bone to the tip of my cheekbone, but I was on my knees. I was on my knees with my hands on my back, ready to stretch my stomach to the sky and bend every vertebrate of my spine into camel pose.
“Keep your eyes open, mouth closed. Don’t look left or right.”
I had just completed a forward bend, feet firm on the ground, head at my knees, so maybe the time-space continuum bent with me, and my sweat was no longer on the same plain as the rest of my body. Maybe the momentum of my sweat was so great, it just kept going. Maybe the heat ionized the salt in such a way as to create a magnetic field which pulled against gravity. Maybe my sweat already knew my next move.
“See the wall behind you.”
It kept crawling, so I touched it, and then I saw her. Glistening, she danced across my hand. Shaky muscles placed a body on the edge of the mat. A mind said “Ants are social animals.”
I smiled, but I didn’t open my mouth.
“I had a nightmare last night that I wanted to study w/ Ariana but she was rly stressed out and didn’t want me to come cuz I might distract her and I got pissed like FINE and went to the study place before she could leave and she eventually got there but the whole time I just drew pictures of red fall leaves and didn’t study fr the GRE at all and felt bad abt myself…I still feel bad abt not studying.”
“You have been doing/pursuing/evolving so much and being so active and positive moving forward cutting out toxins from yr life, I am proud of you and in awe of you and inspired by you every day. Study when you can but don’t let it shake yr core because you learn just by having yr eyes open and yr eyes are the openest of anyone I know.”
I Am The Cold Dead Nothing
I am the old woman talking to you
through a tin can and a string.
Ten years of my brain
splattered on a twin bed.
I am every fascia on my skull
peeled and dried.
I am the cold dead fear
inside of fat pigs.
Ten hundred fat pigs
are nothing to me.
Vicarious Dad
lil daughter: “Why are they called libraries? Is it because they lie?”
farmers’ market dad: “That’s a good theory, honey, but libraries might be the only places that tell the truth anymore.”
Dear Grampa…
I am trying to write a thank-you letter to my grampa
for a $100 check he gave me for my birthday over 2 months ago
that I still haven’t cashed
I’m planning on drafting in Word
so I can rewrite it on nice, respectable stationary
to send to him with a stamp
because he’s never used a computer
but all I can think about
is my travel journal from the 8th grade
when I hand-wrote over 60 pages
in a notebook of hand-made paper
in the style of Georgia Nicolson
and collages and drawings
and my grampa said
“THAT’S how she spells ‘Farris wheel???
Her spelling is atrocious!”
and he was so disappointed.
All I can think to tell him is
“I have spellcheck now grampa.”
and “I’m still disappointing.”
