LIKE SOMETHING ELSE

There is within me   

an orange  

ball. I hold it with two hands  

as it expands, a bright  

lung it  

pulses softly, feeling  

orange.  

I sense a vague evangelism  

in you and realize that  

I must explain  

lest you take this thing to be a senseless  

orphan. You are pretending  

to be a house.  

Wrapping comfortably around  

me but you do not  

comprehend the way that things  

contain each other.  

It waits, I explain, to unite  

simple elements, in sudden  

flashes, making the green  

boughs crowd greenly in the corner  

of the frame, so quickly that  

you really did just  

imagine it. You are  

looking at my explanation  

like a very new painting.  

“You have an orange,” you say.  

Sometimes it can be  

that way, yes. Like fruit.  

But, ah, you have grasped that it might be  

like something else and,  

temporarily, it is safe.  

Something moves within  

you then; you flashing after it.  

But,  

“I am 84 Kortright Road West,”  

you can say.  

“There are six plates  

in the cupboard.”  

And it sees a round landscape, bristling velvet.  

It wonders who is coming for dinner.   

You watch it, bouncing thoughtfully, and you think that 

you could bounce.  

I see repossession creep back  

into your eyes—I know that  

I must act quickly and the irony is   

you could bounce. 

A simple brown wind lifts your curtains,  

rattling the shutters and  

tracking blue through the halls.  

Noticing the sun, a  

brilliant creature  

 lifting itself into the sky,  

I point, saying  

“Something like that.”