Doubt  seems to be in.
The worry drill whirs
where   the   dote   is.
Where  the  face  was
a  vacancy.  And  yet
the  ear  is   occupied
waiting, for there are
other root canals, so you (mis)heard. No doubt the fire’s hunger whirls
                                                                  its  roar  and  weather  down your
                                                                  ear while eating  sky  and  licking
                                                                  daylights  off  dry  trees.   Just   as
                                                                  you  think you  get  the  picture a
                                                                  huge sun  puts  tongues  in  cheek
                                                                  and pushes its  round  belly  from
                                                                  your   table.    Sets  awhile.    Your
breath is rising. A tree that you can feel leans toward a mountain.  It is
still.  The mountains sleep just now.  Their dark  breasts. You  breathe.
In the night above these mountains, the tiny  plane your  son  is  flying
lifts. It lifts on air you breathe. It disturbs  the  air  ahead  of  him  and
then the  air  you  think  you  just  breathed out, not  him.  You breathe.
The phone’s still silent.  Breathe.
 
 
 
  
     
Listen to Muriel Nelson’s reading of “Lift” below…
  

   

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