Start there, in
the unforgiving middle.
What matters most
and most painfully is
the screech:
the noise so fierce,
so brimming
with echo that its life
smacks you clean
across. It is breath,
the flame – not a stillness.
It has the most unfailing
pulse of anything for
a mile. Of carburetors,
of shoe-string,
of the rear window that
you embellished
in the yard. Of you,
*
now: any of your
gentle, mewling, over-
bitten lungs. Then,
if you ask
the more essential
question, I’ll tell you
it actually began with
shag. Stupor. Patches of
grass unfolding
over the admonished
dirt. Will you believe
that none of us
leaned out of paradise
craving this exploded
masterpiece? That
the punch had already
expired? Yet
you had to invite
the neighbors
to a garden party on
the snowiest afternoon
*
of winter. Daughter,
these splinters and this
kindling are your
blood and brain.
There is no going back
when the fire is
at play, and it
is, though it may be
hard to explain
how. What it means
to dance footless
over the world, to be
at and simultaneously
to be the mouth of
an unmarked road.