The pine branches reach—the rain! the sun! the edge of the
moving air! three goats!
Girls on razor scooters turn the corner and scoot
Autonomy actually shows, it shines amidst the stars of decision
I sacrifice hearing to writing, I return to the back of the train
Surrounded by nothing but tattered island nasturtia, the
shoveler is prepared to exclaim, “Grief exterior, grief
prison”
Beastly pine cones are falling from the sky
Down in the middle, and a soft wall, the midnight breeze
billows
Check the role, the rock, the rule!
From cardboard pressed to ginger, water spilled on a list, salt
sprinkled over …
Why so many references to dogs, purple, and bananas?
Then the carnival—it came up afterwards like a vermillion
buttress to say of itself “it appears”
Wren in a ragged bee line, flora sleeping live
Yuki, Felicia, and Maxwell have between them $13.75, and they
are hungry as they enter the small café, where they see a
display of pies and decide to spend all their money on pie
there and then—how much pie will each get to eat if
each pie costs $5.25?
Invincible is my myopia, great is my waist, choral are my ideas,
wingéd are my eyebrows, deep is my obscurity—who am I?
© 2015 Lyn Hejinian. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 31, 2015 by the Academy of American Poets.