Godspeed
Embroidery hoop into hamster wheel,
into tambourine fringed with silver zills
each transforming into a mini-tambourine
dangling from the mother ship. For so long,
you bop along, life around you swapping
scenes like painted scrims at the back
of the stage, images of the far-off sky
or mountains to say distant lands. Then
the world puffs up, every shape inflates,
the spider you almost killed becomes
the spider you rescued, good luck, you
want to say, as you release him into
the yard, godspeed. Once you see that
one thing is not flat, how quickly
the bellows bestow dimension in all
things, into time, too, failing light of day
hot as a pale fireball, the re-encountered
crummy first apartment welling up
and sparkling. You know what it takes
to make a new human, to teach him
how fun it is to pop the plastic bubbles
in the bubble wrap, no need to hold back.
I like this one! Love the title. Yes to sounds in “bopping and swapping” and “the bellows bestow” and the dead vs. the happy, saved spider. Bless him.
ReplyDeleteWhat is real? Probably many things, but certainly a kid popping bubble wrap. Carry on, kid! I like that feeling of resolution, whether or not anything’s really been resolved (as if it could be?).
If you haven’t, you might want to see the new Sarah Polley movie (documentary????), “Stories We Tell”—a similar, if not identical, theme to yours, and very, very well done—if also provocatively done.