between the everything that will be
forgotten + all
that will not I live with
my wife in a house big as I wished
my fists would get
when I was sixteen
+ my anger a fish
I couldn’t catch or count
enance, say living’s any
-thing other
than learning to be the river
that doesn’t scream
at each littered thing,
each stupid impediment, each sliver
of glass washed post-storm into
the flow, some
nights Ellen gets the second glass
of wine, sometimes I
and then mornings, daughter
standing at the edge of her world meaning her crib meaning her abilities
and shouts every sound
she knows, the small satchel
of her torso emptying of its vowels, there must
be some way to live without
each miniscule grace weighing
a metric ton which, conveniently, is 2000 pounds
plus my weight. see? every
last thing has a home
in math, each fingerprint+breath
have a hook in the coatroom
marked calculation and all I mean is
this morning
my wife made me coffee while the world
was still quiet, a gray
numberless sheet of looseleaf,
all I mean
is the river I hope to someday be
will never deserve to be so gently dappled
by sunlight or infinitely seduced
by what we only know to call a storm

.