January 31, 2012

the contradiction

Between the first and second half of Monday, I can tell you
I was a trapeze artist, swinging and somersaulting through a thousand
different stories. No one could have guessed it, watching me order coffee
and a toasted bagel, then following my footsteps to the post office where I
calmly handed over a package and paid the two dollars to send it.
Under the visible, ordinary transactions—the phone calls, the conversations
with inquisitive neighbors, the purchase of milk and eggs, the request
for a doctor’s appointment—we are skittish as birds, full of opposition
to our earthly circumstance and yet, simultaneously, married to it, anchored
at the feet. We stay and we go with each breath. We live and we die everyday.