Pilgrim

Waking up in the morning, the first noise I hear
is the triple dripping of the faucet, telling me
it has been going like that all night.

And I am waking up for the first time,
which doesn't matter much anyway. I suppose
dead pan humor works in the same startlingly

still way. The stillness is alive in the small toe
I swear must be broken, it is still so stiff
and pink and round. The books edging around

the lamp by my bed conquer some aspect of
myself I probably wasn't even aware existed
until I looked straight at the pages and disengaged.

Who is that trumpeter? Who plays the wooden fish?
The water gathers like archapelagaic land shapes
around the faucet bowl, and maybe the world

we have been living in for 60,000 years is really
in our Jazz Club bunkers, sanbagged like soldiers
with drumsticks for limbs.

This is where I feed

my cat in the afternoon, and this is where she shits.
This is the mantra of my inarticulation, and this
is the heavy sound of a rhythm, where it fits, like the

capicitance of my fingers on a television screen,
or the feeling of holding my knees by my chin
long enough until I feel absolutely nothing.