justwrite 3 july

cleaning off his windowsill the man on the pause pause sixth floor leans out he is wearing no shirt his face is unashamed he is brushing off dirt onto the lower layers seconds later the lightning no one even looks up we have all been waiting counting pause the rumbles the stomachs barely touching dinner just yet we’ve got to get moving but the oven isn’t warm enough to call the bluff of bread rising to surprising heights or on this night it’s soft pretzels rebelling to yell across a landscape not their own to phone home for a certain perfect twist that’s been missed along with other tastes and faces and quiet words of wonder at the storms and the music and we are our own truths in the mirror but we cannot help but look elsewhere we haven’t got the software the upgrade to save ourselves the time because there is no shortcut we have got iron guts and closed eyes we are risking any surprise with each morning scorning fear and occasionally embracing it we have not bought our own tickets just to give them away and if the ship will sink then we’ll drink in great gulps of water and of air and we will command our own land beforehand we will race against the rain drops and our inconveniently inappropriate clothes suddenly cold in july and trying to find the last items on a shatteringly long list trying to resist the clouds until they have to be acknowledged we are making plans but they are somewhat inadequate to settle up with reasonable accounts these are not the professions of logical people these are the waiters and the watchers and if there’s a better offer if we cannot be more gentle scoffers we will need to learn to listen we will need to christen each mouthful with the flash of ivory a prayer and its answer we are grateful we make mistakes anyway great buckets full pouring down into our ears and still we hear nothing we are looking the wrong way and the rain is on some other head ours is not for this fate we have plans and we must go to them this is simply for someone else a different ticket has been bought and there must be some mistake