(siegel-schwall blues band)
can’t slap myself hard enough
run into a wall without slowing down,
putting up my hands for protection
who knows what a violent stranger would do to me
like when we were on the 5th floor patio
of my mom’s building and she asked me
about jumping off (in her mid-90s, constant
pain & loneliness) i told her she probably
wouldn’t die, just have more pain and less mobility
the slowly ticking bomb of ageing,
this one way hour glass, when a grain of sand
could become a kidney stone, a spot of glass
slowly eroding, a hint of moisture evolving
into mold, into hunger
so much traffic in me, rush hours only at rare times
of excitement or exhaustion from going too fast for too long
the opposite of the external rush hour
you can’t hurry breath, don’t want my heart
to jump the rhythm rails
my ability to increase my speed is offset
by my slowly diminishing weight
i am not a jumper--someone would have to push me
out of an airplane if i wanted to sky dive
as my chute blossomed i would start rising
then most of my body falls away
like the first stage of a rocket for
slingshot acceleration
with a whole universe to breathe
i may never exhale again
dan raphael