Racing sticks in the river

I did not know what Ruth meant when she wrote me last week

and told me to come out. Come Out. “There is room for you here.”

But today I saw it happen. How I left my body and watched myself

ride tangent to real time and place. Yellow light living,

merging cautiously, one foot on the brake and the other accelerating.

The volume turned down low, every misstep rattling in the trunk.

I wanted to tell Emily that I was mesmerized by the ladder legs

on her black hatted warbler. I wanted to stand in front of the books,

and memorize every title. I wanted to run my hand on the red orange walls.

I wanted to give Bill a head hug and lay down on his wide bed.

I wanted to ask you where you slept. Wanted to use the hula hoop,

try on a silver beaded ring. Wanted to stand in the river.

Pick up acorns and whip them at trees. Throw them hard.

I wanted to take back what I said about my dream.

Take back what I said about everything, supplement the text.

I wanted to go into the kitchen and get my own glass of water.

Touch the purple skin of the eggplant. Taste the pesto.

I wanted to sit down on something green

and say nothing at all for a long time.

But I did not. I do not. If Summa Health Care asked me

to take a drug test, I would come back negative for everything:

smoking pot, drinking whiskey, dancing until I busted a knee,

writing with permanent ink, loving another living being,

giving a friend refuge, feeding a dog bacon, sleeping soundly,

rubbing the chimney head of a baby, walking on a thin mountain path,

driving 12 hours to get anywhere, swimming in the ocean,

folding a fitted sheet, fucking, letting a man kiss my back,

baring my back, baring my shoulders, baring my dry elbows,

holding out the white wrinkled palms of my hands, asking for this.

Knowing I would never live in a town like yours,

I took the long way home. Read a book in Darrow Park.

Bought gas in Twinsburg, stopped in Hudson

to see if they had a shirt big enough for me. Two Xs, one L,

enough room for who I am and all of the layers

that keep me from being me – keep me from coming out.

The woman there told me about the way the Japanese

fold shirts. They criss, cross, then pull up with two fingers

and the whole shirt collapses into the right shape.

They said they wished they knew how to do it,

but loved to use their folding board which worked just as well.

I thought about shirts for next eighteen miles, the sides

that are never seen when they’re on display. The belly of the shirt,

the hem of the shirt, the back, the tail, the inside of the sleeves.

Then origami. The folds within the swan. The flaps inside the peace cranes.

Then I thought about paper, paper so durable it can hold anything.

How it is all just lines on the paper. Lines that make the drawing,

lines that make the letters. Letters that make the words,

words that record the life, stabilize the confusion, bring understanding.

Then I thought about the wood pulp that makes the paper,

the trees lining the banks of the low Cuyahoga River.

The sticks that we raced under the bridge. How that moment

felt real to me. How I was there when that was happening.

How you knew to chose a thick stick, a dense stick,

and I kept selecting thin quills. How your stick found the current,

and mine was never solid enough to slide.

How, despite the weight of me, I am too buoyant.

Not really in it. How, then, it became my instinct to find a better stick.

A wider stick, a bulky stick, something with living marrow.

Not to beat you, but be close enough to be close enough

to see how you are surrendering to living,

so that I can give way to living and surrender my second skin.

The one that keeps me shorebound as the river moves around me.