Beam

How is it I'm becoming particle
solid tool with a few odd uses
even as I'm honed to nothing
more than gesture—wave
or stride, shrug, stutter?
Resolute contradiction, I'm worn
so smooth by now I should be able
to explain everything. So what
is it that escapes me, that
on good days, lifted and filled me?
Because that's what I
would have called light.
Credit

From Rooms and Their Airs by Jody Gladding. Copyright © 2009 by Jody Gladding. Used by permission of Milkweed Editions. All rights reserved.