I thrum along the walls, looking for the light switch.

The tenants aren’t paying the rent.

The stoplights blink

wild, senseless patterns. The edges are frizzing;

the center, forgotten.

Someone is drumming off-rhythm.

The headstones have no markings.

It’s like that.

Or this. I’m trying to double-dutch but miss every jump.

The gears turn too slowly for the car to start.

I’m a hutch that holds too much. Or nothing.

A gully stuffed with old refrigerators.

Grit on a gusty day. The gurgle of a clogged drain.

The sludgy bottom of old coffee cups.

I’m humid and moody. I’ve lost momentum.

The old gumption has turned grumpy.

I’ve forgotten my speech in front of the auditorium.

The amygdala is overwrought and exhausted.

Muggy and pudgy, dumpy and rangy.

A jiggly flan. A pale pudding. A mangy dog.

The gaudy necklace has lost its gems.

The buzz-hum drowns the sweet and subtle

music. A muddy mouse hobbles along

slowing synapses. Myopic, we squint

at blurred trees. It's like that.

I want my brain to be a clean afternoon,

but no one water-skis on this murky pond.

No one sits on a beach chair

in this gusty cove. I want to second-guess

everything I’ve ever known

but can’t hold a thought long enough.

I’m drowning in dreams.

Mostly I’m ashamed,

but sometimes relieved to be relieved

of so much thinking.

I’ve forgotten to worry. Or I’m only worry.

I can’t remember which.

I fear you’re asking for that thing only I can give

but I can’t hear you through the mumbling.

I’ve forgotten desire.

I can’t find the doorknob.

But midday, head on a pillow, I hear—

under the couch, the wooden floor,

concrete, the rooty-worm layer,

the clay and the boulders

—that beating heart bedrock,

homefull and nameless,

that’s been with us forever.

It’s like that, too.