Clone Song
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.