A crack in the pocelain

I’m a wonky dervish, a driverless car on a gravel road. Close my eyes to edit out the lame parts, the scenes that hurt. Time still to measure another man to see if I might fit.

I don’t remember lying down to sleep. I don’t remember getting up; it’s the in between places you need to worry about. And sometimes along the streets and avenues, the gutter lines and ponderers beg for smaller change. She doesn’t know what she’s asking for, but I’ll find some way to give it to her. Finalizing the details, what measure of things will be lost in the disintegration of the minutiae. I’m anything but details.

I am all details, but nothing about broad gestures. If you could smile differently, not so crooked, cross your arms the other way, hug harder than you do . . .

The limp embracing people, the big breath ones. Medussa wants and longs among the dam builders again shoring up the little things. I am lusting for the big gesture, the larger muscle groups, the firm machinery of happens and the broad shoulders of answers without ambiguity. A split sideways chronicle of the falling away, but I wasn’t good for much more than that.

Some days you can’t get upright until you’re going down the other side. You fall for people who are getting up. Maybe you feel taller. In between breaths there is a moment, before you want the next thing, before the loss from the last sets in. A crack in the porcelain. But it’s gone before you know it.