OK, so-- I hear traffic so I just make sure--
is this all right?
This mic?
OK.
Cool.
I like traffic.
I'm frequently part of it, but still.
"Permission to Speak."
"And if I be torn?
And if torn means mendable?
And the wayward mission of your body
be a needle's mission, up and through my own?
How softly the after comes loose,
unraveling, until it's just before.
Bees again in the catnip, the yarrow,
the last of those hydrangeas that I call forgiveness,
for their useless unfolding and flowering routinely,
each time as if this time something different will be
what happens, not the usual ghost
of put-aside-for-now-sorrow disappearing,
none of that steadiness with which he kept looking back,
back at both of us, as he lifted away."