A Thread You Follow

After collapsing, I cried,
"This day has wiped me out."

She looked over, "Funny.  
I do not see the straw
that broke your back."

I asked, "Are you suggesting 
that I am somehow related 
to camelus dromedarius?"

"Go far enough back and we
all managed to pull ourselves
out of the sea without 
much complaint."

Smiling, I said, "You need
to change careers, as you make
a great same-day, care technician."

She smiled, too.  "I like your 
words when you lie there broken, 
all humped over and distant 
from ecstasy."

I do not want to live in an infinite 
number of universes at the same time.
My mind...and body...can only handle one.

Instead, I would like to live a thousand thousand lives.
After each life arrives at an end, to begin again in 1965
as someone else, as one who suffers in different
ways and who watches waterfalls with the same
fascination.

thoughts thought
and thoughts spoken,
routines begun
and ruts escaped,
furniture purchased
and couches rearranged,
conversations begun
and lips sealed,
places of listening
and shouting matches,
fiber wound tight
and a spool unreeling,
breaking oppression
and exercise of dominion,
continual re-birth
and learning the story,
the end of wisdom
and what begins 
deep inside bones.

Jazz musician, army grunt,
married three times, retired,
dressed-up every morning
for a day of aloneness,
still practices on electronic 
drums in his bedroom while 
watching cable television,
waiting for the evening meal 
to be delivered and open the 
door with a welcoming smile.