A new room with an old bed.
A mattress on the floor.
Count the 1000 threads
above and so
below.
1000 ways
(to run out of ways)
to forgive another person.
.
Ears and fingertips and old skin
fold under tracks and tracks of salt
stained 1000 times over.
1000 eyelashes
settle and dry
on rough cheeks fluttering
then pressed under firm palms, pressed
1000 times before.
(And to wish 1000 times would seem
to do more good
but perhaps you unwish it
when you overwish it 999 times
over.)
.
And to count the 1000 threads
would seem impossible with your
back pressed into it.
But it gets easier when you’ve been there
1000 times before.
(And no one ever tells you that
they take a small piece each time…
1000 pieces missing from the backs of my knees
and I wonder
how the 1000 drops of water from the constant post-shower
hasn’t yet filled the gouges completely.
And I wonder how I haven’t gotten my fill yet and
stepped out.)
.
Maybe when the empty space has had its fill, so too will
And you’d think that the 3000 words
from the identical 1000 phrases
would fill the 1000 gaps.
And you’d think you’d run out of skin to give.
(And you’d think they’d stop coming
to make offerings of atonement for their sins
by payment of your flesh.)
.
But they keep coming back with
forceps and a glue gun.
With a smile and an eye for bright color…
And when you’re running out of skin,
when your case unravels 1000 miles,
You’ll wonder where to go too.
