i imagine my contexts as if they were stories
stretch plastic cotton from my pillow case and wash its legitimacy as if it were wool
it is to insulate and sustain a never-changing state of comfort and ease and space to contain
as its taste exists to me
my bladder is full
i inhale whistles and chimes
the wind, laughing
a row of hanging songs parallel from the orange wall on the balcony that faces the field Mohammad would kick a soccer ball
to opposite ends
and i was first taught the difference between heaven and hell
at the slaughtered goat in the front yard whose blood trickled down the well our cat leaped into seeking shelter from the pastimes of boys
only to soak in crimson
innocence spilt
at the hands of men with knives
i imagine my contexts as if they were stories
so when my actor transfigures into the son within me
i am parallel to the shore to keep from drowning
i have energy
there remains a will
if nature could affirm her struggle
we could unify
unruly weeds would grow over and into me in the depths of a trench
as if to inherit the void of being unknown
for the goodness in me
can only be found at the mouth of a channel
where the current knows strength
and i am the soft bedrock
of a natural earth
it is only the weather that erodes
my only god is the moon
i wake up to chapped lips
half-dead on the rocks
where i could reach the water
if i could bring myself to turn over
if there was courage to see the day
i am expected in the morning
the veil is thin
there are flies in my eyes
here at the gate
my present transforms into mythology
where there is light
i am imagined
where there is light
there comes a draw
i keep out the tide
an act of preservation
as the salmon spawn