11.7.2006

What's More Important


is the kind of honesty where
I'm able for a fleeting moment to return
to the truth that lines and gives shape to the days
that make up the months that make up my life
as I live it.

what I want is to bypass entirely
the insignificancies that have attached themselves
to me with the passing years,
to know what changed within
the scrawny, rubbery figure

who watched television and, inspired,
told his mother that if He were to play football
professionally,
that after every down He would get up
and hand the ball back to the official.

has He forgotten that dream of kindness?
so soon, has He popped the balloon
that was only just tied to his wrist?
what does He need to accomplish
before He arrives at that place
He knows exists (or at least used to),

that place that He can only glimpse and find
reflected in so-called trivial moments? that place
he knows is a little closer when He stands up
too fast

and for half a second
gravity forgets to breathe
and the horizon and He lock eyes,

or lies bed-bound all day
following the ceiling fan, thinking helplessly
about Blair C; of how she disappeared
because her mom got fed up
with just about everything;

of her hair, and the way she always smelled
like watercolors, and the valentines she sent
carelessly to fragile hearts,
never meaning to break them,
never knowing she could;

of how He had loved her,
and what He’d try to say if He saw her again,
and those stupid, aching motions of the heart.