Photo by Anton Pinchuk

for Emily Carr

That rain falls on palaces and prisons
at the same time, I did not know to be true.
That the first thing in the morning was the morning,
was only a guess I made one night. That one twin
will literally see her own death,
well, it seemed logical enough. Some airbags deploy,
others are not so timely. There are things school children
should not see on the bus ride home. Trust your trench coat
implicitly. To hunt the deer in motel room paintings
is folly. If the attendant has the key,
you don’t have to buy the franchise.
Barometers, too, will tempt the clouds,
but nothing real about the world can be seeded
or weighed with truck scales. If the white lines are broken,
you are not looking fast enough. Lightning is God
taking pictures of the victims. The present, like your elbow,
bends just one direction. The orange-handled carafe
is always more full; you won’t like it either,
but when you drink it, sip pensively
and kiss the ring on your own hand. Majesty
appears in many guises. Ghosts spend an eternity
trying to pick up a fork. It’s ok to mistake
a stranger’s window for your personal drive thru.
All window glass will be digital by 2017.
Tears are the adapter. We wonder how we survive
our childhoods. The answer is: we don’t.
Adjust mirrors. Proceed slowly. Merge with next
sentence drawn inland from the coast.
We are all bees on a flowered dress.
We are all flies on piano keys.
We are all echoes. Sometimes in unison. Which makes us happy.