Falling across curious laps
who won’t collapse our weight

into foldable furniture    
are blackened embouchures

or umbrellas that retract
I feel today didactic about my own legs

and how they carry me at a pace
I set.  A barrette keeps unbridled

emotions away from the face
and I walk away from my face

so as to bring justice to or at least
a record of my body’s misgivings

about contortion back into the mainstream
Would that there were a clone to fly

like the crows over my itching little
life and buy me something small

to eat and on repeat I go falling out of the sky
and into the bed of a driveway and

go to sleep. It is awkward not having
enough force to keep up with the running

creek. I am no babbling brook, more so
a rook with two bows on its wings.

Where is my clone to provide a better life
for the children that follow me, call me

father. I have never given life to a plant
longer than a couple weeks. It is not so simple

to love something. It is not a punishment
to let the life around you go like a paintbrush

off a table. When I am able to walk among
a crowd then I will have my downy feathers

then I will know how to say precious words
to another. Don’t bother me now with all your

underwater signals. It is as though I am learning
again for the first time how to look at an eye.