You've feasted on the daily bread
long enough to see a trail of ants
coming over the mountain cushions
toward the gulch between cereal bowl and serving plant.
I have sat behind the wheel
of a car I cannot drive
long enough to know the drive way
is a place of static electricity
coursing under the asphalt
just as the sun reaches the center
of the noon time air
and turns the radiance into spearing prisms
and cause the car to seem
to meld with the side of the house,
indistinguishable from milk box, garden hose,
or engine parts from a lost freezer box.
All of us have stood
long enough
in line to remember
the tide of birthdays
that come at you
from a crowded calendar,
who is around and who
cannot return a phone call,
the window we await
remains a point
at the end of a long stick,
none of this furniture
puts us at ease,
the noises are as familiar
as a chorus of breakfast table coughs and sighs,
the slow trickle of light
crawling in from under the door.
