The relevant winds mechanize me, and I decided,
if there is no pain, I will rise. There is pain,
so, I will contradict myself and walk to the kitchen while
the spring mornings express their particular greyness.
One morning I ask the wind why he must carry himself so harshly.
His whistle on the windowpane sounds like a rebuke to a ridiculous
line of questioning. I retreat and press powdered beans into the cauterized
needle and watch heat arise from faraway power lines until
water and oats and sterilized antioxidants rest adjacent my hand.
This again and again now that I don’t send the
sputtering steel eastward in the mornings across
the idiocy of broken asphalt. Again, and again,
not pressing warped wood into the palms of yesterday
nor
do I insert film into beckoning silver and plasma
when it prompts more from me and begs more of me
until I offer more and more and never stop dividing pieces of myself
into a tin alloy bucket somewhere east.
In the mornings I measure the accomplishments of yesterday
and ladle them into the tablespoon set resting in the counter drawer,
though I often wonder whether my measurements are correct.
Mornings forever arrive. They bang the windowpanes asking for
something different, but I serve one teaspoon of vanilla
again and again, and though they must change, so I can alter,
they lie inseparable and seep turbid air into my capillaries.
I petition for the absence of pain
yet it remains, adhered, and delves into my legs alongside
every semblance of Michigan and I feel my accent surge back
and know I can stray yet never change.
Isn’t that what Dad would always tell me?
Yes, he responds, wooden on the living room end table.
I widen my eyes at this newfound chameleon
and implore the Michigan cold to take it from here.