WAKING FIT

 At random in our bodies,

      this backyard swimming;

 the blue water blue in relation

      to the heavens, which echo

 without being, and so blown

      out of proportion. Our time

 on this planet is a baseball bat,

      a hollowed-out log, the scaffolding

 of a ballerina—all very different

        things—though all of them hits.

And now I am brittle with thingness,

      with coming to conclusions

 and forgetting all existence: the couch

      in the dark, being on it.

 Epistemology irks me, so I swim

      in not knowing, even in the clearing

 and the clearly where it hurts me,

      the suffering of ever more

 miniscule beings: the hawk flying

      into the building—and I don’t mean

 inside, I mean into the perimeter, glass

      shatter, stupid pigeon! Plug in

 and proceed through each

      statement’s truth value: once again

 mistaken for small children at the zoo,

     maybe this is autobiographical.

 Or maybe it’s you hauled out

      of the drinking, alphabet

 gasping in a sunlight of butter…too much

      amplifier as I tickle my daughter…

Nobody gets away from anguish.

      The question is always

 what to do with one’s hands.