Lodestone

my grippy socks are outside while inside  
the grey tube magnets orbit my head, 
the way I imagine seabirds circle a whale’s  
bubble net. A technician charts my mind’s 

grey furrows and I wander from my body.  
Is this how god would judge me: counting  
to see how long it takes my atoms to diverge 

then align with his magnetic field? Even  
with the machine’s exacting resolution, I don’t believe  
he’d see me. Better to remember watching humpbacks  
navigate and imagine how enskulled magnetite pulls 

them along earth’s magnetic field. Is it that I wanted 
the leviathan to see me, and perhaps god—the way I  
once saw a whale in Resurrection Bay? We were bound

by the light wave reflecting off us, buoyed by oscillating  
waves. Perhaps, there’d only be waves. I don’t need  
to be seen, but I need the whale, the waves, the certainty 
that we exist. Better to remember how I loved 

the corded phone as a teen, loved its tight coils, more elastic  
than they looked. I’d thread my finger through them,  
like stacked rings and bind myself to another’s voice, 
the limits of my romance. I didn’t know a compass

could encircle desire until my love replaced the cords  
with a single shining loop. This machine demands removal.  
Bereft, I remember how I lost myself following raspberries 
through the woods behind our home. I could not find my way.

I called and his voice found mine before we saw each other. 
I called and his voice found me.