Trigger Warning
Jellyfish are what is on my mind this morning.
The silent blue street
and the somnambulant lives
of jellyfish, which somewhere
even at this moment
sail ever slowly on.
I have so much blood inside me,
I make the coffee every night before bed,
I was lit on fire once,
I try to dance at weddings,
I swim, I live alone.
Recalling it all,
words I said, ways I acted,
fights I fought,
I wonder: who was that, passing through
there, in the same place
I could swear that I was.
I swim at night, I live alone.
The chlorine glow of my secret life.
One day I will have the thought: I have made a very,
very big decision.
When I was young, so young I hardly remember,
I switched bones with a bird. He was sitting on the ground nearby
and when I asked politely, he obliged. Now I think:
Thank you, Mr. Bird, wherever you are.
I wish I could remember what kind you were. It might help me, now.
I’m sorry for making you so heavy.
The lives of jellyfish continue in the dark and light,
as they drift on the streams of warm and cold water
that they’ve been moving toward
from the beginning.
One day I will wash away,
feeling hardly anything, unencumbered
as a jellyfish.
This morning I’m trying
but I can hardly imagine what,
in the dark and light,
just what
that will feel like.