There was an old woman who made
Impatiens out of fire, stars from sugar
cubes, and water from the gaiety
of whales. She told me
in a playful moment by the river,
she just went with it,
told me a story about a man
with gum on his sole who stopped,
wrenched up his shoe bottom,
and heard the palms of two friends
meet in an office two years ahead and he
wondered how such a thing could be.
In a gentle dip at the sandy river,
she just went with it.
I could go back in time, she said.
I could go back in twos, she said.
I could assume the sublime
in everything and strip the white
from the prevarication of paper
and find sympathetic greens, saturated reds,
winds feathering out of the blow holes of whales.
I see her eyes in the grass, attending me
like the burn of the running sun
and go with it.
