from a Buddhist poet: “PAY ATTENTION (or you won’t see it coming!)”
Bold capitalization means: this is important.
Parenthesized italics means: you should already know that.
It took a full week to fall off—the scab,
the results of bashing her mouth on the boat’s railing
after she’d triumphantly navigated a few miles up river,
after glasses of wine,
after a bracing swim in her underwear
and that diaphanous, drunken connection
to the whole. Euphoric trees in full summer green
fluffed against the shore, hiding thousands of miles
of Midwestern farm land—so far from her man.
The water floated her towards St. Louis.
Three clouds—swift, silent
as if they had business in Sioux Falls—
sped north.
THEY DIDN’T WAVE. This important,
and you should already know that
(accidents are reminders, adjustments of awareness.)
You see,
what you see is not always what you get
since you won’t see it coming.
You get a fat lip
and disinterested clouds,
and further downstream,
the bruised results of your
lonely lack of attentiveness.