I planted two soft potatoes in the back yard
just to see what might happen.
I clawed out nails from the top of the trim,
used them to hang gifted Grapefruit prints
next to the bathroom door.
Then a night fragment dangled:
standing on my aunt’s couch, taking down a red tapestry
because it was too much—
her walls were stuffed with paintings already.
The move is a season away
but the moon eggs me onward, waxing again, coolly
suggesting I toss up a few more things.
Why disobey my dream? Why blithely plant a flag
of denial, then hammer it into the earth
for good measure?
I even think there’s time to make a new friend,
which is either a sign of guru-grade mindfulness
or a train that doesn’t quite make it over a hill
and slides back down the rails,
a child shimmering in the vanishing point
of a gravel alley, chasing a ball,
a face squinting at the sunset while dandelions
and violets bloom on the far side of the skull.
A teacher once told me the body’s back side
holds grief. There’s so much you’ll never see
without a mirror: pointy scapula, twisting spine.
And life will go on and on no matter which way you face
or how you contort.
Can I choose, or will I always follow the signs?
Now, every time I head to the bathroom
Yoko is there to remind me:
Listen to the sound of the earth turning.
Listen to a heart beat.