If I had more time—
neither family nor job, neither
errands nor sense of duty—
I would visit every week,
light, free of all this weight
which presses me to the soil,
the way a low-flying plane
flattens a field of fragile wheat:
praise the interval between flights!
Make time, they say, as though it were
a currency—Bitcoin, the gold standard,
the almighty dollar—and I a central bank.
Each morning I mint new reasons to arise;
I grow tired of mining myself; what remains
is low-grade, a fever that discomfits
but does not kill. I want the leading edge
of death, the gem so sharp, it can slit
a wrist and make the blood sparkle.
Another plane flies overhead. Do the passengers
see me here, stitching myself to the ground?
From the air, these fields must appear as a quilt:
Do I belong amidst the canals and crops?
And are you up there, pondering the plague of heat
and doubt that threatens the harvest? I bow my head
before the blade that would let loose what I hold
within, but the blade does not come.
All is quiet, save a receding engine’s roar,
a plume of smoke, and my uneven, unsteady breath.
I want to live after all, or at least survive
the day’s threshing: to nourish that hunger which
compels one to go half-blind searching the skies
for the plane that will bring you back to me.
