not achilles but deeper
where we travel together
along ice and hard-packed snow
on an island in the middle
of the Mississippi
boom

you have complained some
about the weather
more precisely
barometric pressure
now we stretch and wish
those others would join us

success without daydreaming
does not compute
never stop tracking
the teacher
even when
he’s dead

your grandmother’s house
is too small
to store all her memories
she was born into
to walk the sidewalks
no longer an organ grinder

turns out
we are the invasive species
that no shuttered lock
can prevent
from spreading
downriver or uphill

you share my anxiety
for the comma
gone rogue

that expired
New Jersey Transit schedule
I jammed under a leg
to a chest
of drawers
has been there for years

I needed something
to balance my life
as my father slowly evaporated

he was a marathon
of years
older than me

you want me to use
geophagy in a poem
before it’s too late
to run two loops around
Central Park
one more time

no matter how many
of my birthdays pass
as anniversaries
of my father’s birth
the number 8
upright or napping is ours

as the sun sets
the Earth shrieks
rings of blood red
sends waves of anxiety
passing through its layers
to burst from its crust

when I walk outside
wearing headphones
I cannot know if I have begun

to hum uncontrollably
cannot know if it’s that
or a dark sky
piercing scream
that paints horror
on people’s faces

and I do smile
sometimes while I run
despite what you think