Scrid
If magic doesn’t basements flood.
Avoid attaching,
warns my therapist,
when I predict flooding.
Instead,
observe your thoughts
which are like clouds, no?
In an exaggerated Maine accent,
she leans forward and says,
“If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.”
*
My thoughts have a voice that is not mine,
a gravelly baritone, a man married to his pipe
who works a boat through winter.
On the water, says the voice of my thoughts
that is not my voice but are my thoughts,
you’re pulling pots in a spot of sun
when all around you, rain.
*
My thoughts can turn on a dime,
unlike opinions,
I tell my therapist,
who has a sweet face
and swears her grown kids love her.
*
One out of five children is hungry,
my thoughts say at 6:06pm,
clearly not fucking around
since I’m sawing a bloody ribeye.
And many homeless adults are kids
who aged out of foster care, now
don’t let that steak get cold.
*
Guns are the leading cause of death in children,
mention my thoughts in response
to getting stuck behind a school bus.
*
Some thoughts do not have the lobsterman’s voice.
Some are like a sudden smear of color,
a male cardinal at the feeder, gone as quickly as he arrived,
everyone who glimpsed him now acting
like they can communicate with the dead.
*
I wake every night at 2am,
clenching a bullet between my teeth.
Don’t clench! says the dentist,
as the needle sinks into my cheek,
Or consider this $400 mouthguard
that your insurance will never cover
and you will never wear.
*
The dentist drills while Bob Dylan plays from a tinny speaker.
My thoughts suggest Dylan was a bit of an asshole,
too busy eclipsing the sun
to wash his pants.
*
Everything’s frozen solid today
but will climb into the 60’s and hover,
unnatural for February,
snowmelt flooding basements -
but just think how good
the sun will feel on sallow skin.
Seize the spoils of war!
*
We’re just prefab houses, I tell my therapist,
dropped on crumbling soil,
manufactured following the accepted custom
of planned obsolescence.
*
I picture the windburnt man who vocalizes my thoughts
removing his vinyl gloves, tamping tobacco into his pipe,
hunched against the wind.
I see a wave coming,
he says, adjusting his oilers.
And it’s ‘uge.
*
Watch.
Stay curious.
Inhale, to the count of five,
exhale, to the count of five.
Hold the pause in between,
the tiny point of stillness
where breathing stops
and nothing suffers.
*
Sometimes you pull pots
under a single, livid cloud,
when everywhere else, sun.