The Weather Underground
Sarah Kanabay
Posted on August 22nd, 2016
1.
How To Have A Body
Here are your limbs and where
Oh here is your
Head it has these many
Places for looking and this line
Jaw to hair that a hand
Could go, hesitantly
It’s not clear? A finger passage
Spells out the unspoken
Is an alphabet of unconscious–
You mean you just
Want the manual, the sockets the
Sight and its correction, the bone
That follows the other bone, down
To where the ground
Begins, to where all
Sentences end
The allen wrench
Of your arteries, the pill
That puts you out
Tab A
Slot B
Requires some
Assembly.
2.
How To Be In Motion
It’s been some time, and maybe this is
What it was like to drive the lunar
Rover, familiar and not
Familiar, the luminous curve
Making a distant signature of gravity
On the dark mouth of space
It’s just a
Dashboard, and your leg below
It, levering–
The place where breaks have been
Bonded back, the stiff pain
That means motion
It takes you to the grocery store
And wanders down the aisles, each
Bright thing calling out a name, calling
Out your lack of
List and you alone in it, not sure
How you got here
Six months of
Memory and
Celery spelling
Why you’re crying, why a hole punched
Its dim fist through your
Surprised heart
In this stupid
Parking lot.
3.
How To Remember
You never meant
No, they never
Do
Would you be able?
No, I would not and then
That makes me
That makes you nothing, but what you
Choose, really
Remember Patrick Swayze? And
This is your
Dance space
This is my
Dance space
But also Nicki Minaj
You don’t tell me
Who I am
I tell you
Who I
Am–
They will want
You to stay small, to
Keep the lights on
In that one spot
It’s a fire
And you left it
To burn
out.