The little muscles through my elbow,
because I pulled my arms down so hard, with all the books I had to keep,
my arms had been pulled down too hard, over and over.
in the morning I woke up in a white bed and my forearm felt red as meat,
and it did not get better
would’ve been worse, but friends helped with the last leg (arm) of the move, books into a friend’s stone basement, down rickety stairs, we passed them.
The little muscles that go through the bone of my elbow,
of my skeleton, these did not have enough room,
they wore back and forth like a run of yarn through a hole in rock, back and forth,
back and forth unravel, splitting, getting thinner.
We pretended to have a whiskey after, I just tasted, we were forty years old, just,
and I petted the triangle underchin of his dog, who is extremely polite.
We are old enough to have done some of the things we wanted to do.
I had a violin, I still have one,
and the bow is so light.
Bugs eat the horsehair, if you leave it too long. It held heavy notes. They are called bow bugs.
Last Christmas my father had it rehaired but I didn’t play.
I buy the $3.59 pens with liquid ink inside, available in any drugstore,
warning: (picture of airplane) uncap and set upright when flying.
Cabin pressure, may rupture. Changes. Rupture, pressure, when flying.
All of the bones of birds are hollow.
Birds don’t need pens, write with their bodies,
with their forms, on the sky.
Your thoughts are hollow.
You leave stains.
Soon you’ll be someone else’s story,
you can clean up after yourself,
light things that are strong (your self)
those glass balls you hang on Christmas trees,
the shiniest things you’ve ever met,
their faces give your face back,
sucked up and blown out
I have ink stains from ruptured pens in every bag I own.
Soon we’ll be someone else’s story, anyway.
I turn and twist my arm to strengthen it
it is working, gradually,
I take a blue bag of whatever gets cold,
wrap it, lie it down, lay my arm on it,
and it was strengthened, and it gets cold.
Image: Osiris, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Landing 