Wax Wings

The week lays before us like a red ladder on the floor.
While it seems to point forward it is going in the wrong direction.

What can I lean it against that will let me climb up to you?
–sometimes the present has no leverage!

The black belt looks at his watch.
For a long time he does not move.

He is like a pen hovering over a blank page–
The shadow is written first.

*

There is an art to flying across the days
To reach out without holding on.

The will, like a migratory pattern, synced
To wingbeats, weather and hunger.

Before we knew what we were
We knew where we were going.

On the ground below, at the site next door
A worker rests his ladder against the wrong house.

*

And here we are now. Like hands on a watch.
Atoms that can get no closer no matter what we do.

In the quiet do-jang, the students disperse like birds.
The music from the mall hesitates at the entrance

And slinks away. The black belt has seen enough,
He covers his watch with his sleeve and turns us

Into a form of silence and motion. Like words
That could save someone’s life, or kill them.