Laws of My Nature

Obviously, the roosters are in league
with morning, the thrum of the sun
placing itself into the sky, again

the cholera, and again, mitosis—
electric salts of friction and desire
that appear out of nothing. Obviously

this happened, though as in dreams,
there are moments that feel
it might not have, not a dream, not a dream,

not anything, really, except disappearing
into silence. Regret is not a drug
I take and so I'm still sane. I am indigent,

which means to be in want, yet I want
for nothing. Another citadel of the skin,
another who can name me. Close by,

this waterfall carries breath.
I am enamored. A reverie continues.
Blue is an endearment, erratic

and sometimes missing. Let me decide
to speak, and then I am saying love,
I am saying again and everything and

absence, into the heavy air, almost
a fabrication of air, until it moves
into the lungs darkly. There is solace

in understatement, even if a thought
continues unsaid. There is the opposite
of clamor, and surely there is always

one feather spiraling on the wind.
I worry when things seem true,
and so disbelieve. I surrender

to the hardness of slate
and to the mossy places. Do you recognize
the markers of yearning in disguise?

Can you understand momentum
while you stand perfectly still?
A snake drops from the tree and makes

a small noise—the sound of thinking
itself away—and across the leaves
a slithering. My conscience must operate

that way—a long drop and then evasion—
because to understand how longing works
I would deny the sun its rising.

Copyright © 2002 Margot Schilpp All rights reserved
Pleiades
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission