a moon, worn as if it had been a shell

to J

Listening to an old friend's music, and I'm wearing pale pink and jeans and it's a steady beat and a low, low voice, a growl that makes me shiver, yes, walking on air. The boy is making pasta in the kitchen, yesterday's lassitude is today's dig deep. There is no denying the wild horse in us, said Virginia Woolf. I've been thinking about miracles of late, not the Jesus kind, how small they are and yet, how huge. I've been thinking of paradox and the skill in holding it, the tightrope stretched tight, the give and the balance. It's a miracle! they say, over and over and I want to agree, I nod my head, I say yes. I bristle in the assent. It's been nearly twenty years of work, this miracle. Not a descent from nowhere, somewhere -- bing! or ping! -- it's hard labor, the years of it, what I've done in mind and body. S pointed out that we work our asses off, and I laughed at the spread of mine despite what should be a grotesque muscularity. Paradox, again.  Is that a miracle? Thank God! others say, for the miracle! I think, it's a plant! I, and many others, worked our asses off to get it despite it being kept from us by those who keep things down, whose power is such that paradox is impossible, who reel in the tightrope, shield their eyes at the attempt, would never walk on air. I'm drained from the work, from the voices that make miracle suck me dry. Back and forth, back and forth. I'm walking toward the growl that makes me shiver, the air. Hold your breath.