January 14, 2025

prayer for empty space

Now that the school bus has come, there is no reason 
to be standing on the street, listening for the gasp of its wheels. 
Now a house, silent after the rushed morning. No more oranges 
in the fruit bin. The bag of old lettuce, a wrinkled udder. 

When people stop asking how things really are, go on about 
their electric bill, their unhelpful children, the hitch in their hips. 
The gym come July: unattended yoga mats, the spotless parquet.

Any beginning, or ending. The tumbleweed feeling of where am I. 
Before the snowplows get there. A bowl of pistachio shells. 
Waiting rooms. The future. Any geography absent of road signs. 

Let’s bow our bodies to the patch of earth where grass used to be, 
splay hands to their edges with our shy wanting. 
Come, feast on every vacancy. Widen the room of our eyes. 
What is there when the lights come down?

Everything else.