I am a ghost
a sizzling fuse of goose bumps that ripples
across your right forearm when reaching for a scone –
you don’t even like scones –
you stop mid reach – forgetting –
to the wandering thought you
thought you heard
someone ask for a scone

You lose the connection – brush it off
like cobwebs on your face
when you duck through doorways
thinking you are arriving
when really
you are leaving

Every morning
I talk to the leaf cluster
that grips the Basswood branch

I talk to the leaf cluster
that looks like a bird
because it is
a screech owl frozen
by the Medusa of daylight

I am like the old cat with brittled, cracked teeth
that bites with caution
even the lushest of yellow grained bread
its crust thick from sprinkled water before baking.

The old man at the baths
said that Methana has her cycles
with the springs hottest before, during, and just after
a full moon with calm oceans
the action released under cover of gentleness –
within days
the wind twists into churning
each wave a billion pre-byzantine amoeba – curl, flip –
a torturous turning of inside out
a writhing catalyst of motion
an avalanche of stones rolling
like potatoes us kids rolled at church fairs with spoons
until we struck the finish line
like waves
that struck the shore
sure enough to leave a part of ourselves
moistened and trickling back through the pumice
never cooling completely, back into ourselves
the gases that bring both life and destruction
there in the hot springs.

These are our cycles and you can pretend
you are exempt
you can deny
the pull of pre-existence
until the day you roll up on yourself
pulled apart by squawking gulls
the seaweed we once were
we are again.