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On Sunday
Went down to the river.
Heard a plane but didn't see it.
An invisible man in the sky—
I've read about him.
He's supposed to be watching us.
So I took off all my clothes
and got in: green water
seeping up my spine, making me
less than heavy. I told myself
it was his hands untying the knot
like apron strings at my back.
Shuck me, I thought. When it got
cold, I drove into town and stopped
at a bar, the first one
I could find. It wasn't hard
drinking my beer and easing coins
in the jukebox. Sometimes you can't
intellectualize need. A beer,
a song. You put it in the body
and the body makes use of it.
What I needed was a dance,
a lover, a good night's sleep,
not wheel-well circles under
my eyes or sermons about sparrows.
When I got home it was dark,
the hammock swinging on the porch
like a crippled moon. No one
was coming to give me what I
needed, but I lay down and waited
anyway, the air hovering,
as always, just above me.
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