7.18.23

The thing is, I've got to get back to cleaning. Sweeping up the dirt, walking down the street, practicing commitment to this life now, trying to walk deeper into the silence, into the heart of things. I picked a random staircase and with every step I tried to practice. "The theory of the poem is resistant to expression" (Glissant). At work, at home, at the door of the body. My mother used to say to me: you will understand when you are older. Yes, I am understanding. Standing in the sun, looking at my legs, your hands on my thighs, alone in the house, surrounded by people, rolling up the carpet, wiping down every surface. Tired, all the time. For now we have money but no time. And then we will have no money and no time and then we are truly fucked. And the greatest of these is love. The motion of life. My mother the workhorse. Nobody turned to embrace her and said stop. Nobody said you, when she said what about me? She drove herself into the wind and back. She said all this for my children. She spoke up and spoke down. Where does the poem end? Mopping the floors, cleaning the bathtub, pulling hair out of the drain. Shopping for groceries, putting gas in the car, cleaning the shoes, making breakfast. Suddenly, a spin through time. This memory, completed, or maybe finally breathing: I am sitting in the kitchen. She enters and yells at me for burning the toast. She can't get ahold of herself. We are driving in the car until we reach this place now, where I am writing to you, to her, saying that I am here to meet you. Saying, yes, I finally understand.