i realized a wire had become disconnected from the bilge pump and that by touching the two wires together the pump again worked and i don’t think i’ve ever felt more proud in my life

with 9000 people in this
cobbled town, i find it
mildly astounding
that zero of them come in
to this small shop
that i wedge myself
into it, for 3 hours,
on a winded thursday
evening in the Fall.

it rains for a while and then
takes a break.
the wind picks up and then
sets back down.

have i nothing,
that even one person
might find worthy of
threading themselves through
the dropping sky?

it can be difficult
to tell people
how i feel,
tell them
face to face,
pinwheel pupils
spinning.

the wind picks up,
spinning me like
manta ray.
i never knew i could
get so motion sick
just from floating.
it looked so calm,
yet it made me
so effusive.

this town is still
an open wound.
still a flank of peeling
skin. people
who look like me,
they are all over this
town. none of us
belong here. none
of us asked if we can
bed ourselves down.
none of us have made
any effort to help
take the turned stomach,
and gently try to put it
back.
and it can be so difficult
to tell someone how
you feel about them.
maybe most so when
you want to tell them,
“i love you”,
and
“thank you”
and
“i am always sad
even when i am happy,
because i know
one day
you won’t be here”.
it is so hard to say
these things,
and so often so
easy to give wind
to our words of wound.

maybe i give
too much weight
to the tip toeing of tongue,
neglecting the other languages
our bodies speak.
the electro-magnetic machine
at our northern center,
its verbiage of impulse
and hum.

we don’t even speak,
not with our mouths,
in the way this land
was accustomed to.
those words were replaced
with entirely different sounds.
animals,
all of us.

animals,
all of us,
making so much
noise. changing
the sounds, yet
the meanings remain
the same. it can be
so impossible,
to say what we wish
we could say.
to the people
we love.
to the land
that loves us.
to all that we have
pushed out of
the way.

again we can find
language to speak
to each other,
in a far more native tongue,
the one we all share.
the one that has
always been inside,
painting our cave walls,
since back when we all knew
each other, only
as family.