Titular

Not a Buddhist, exactly, but there’s

a blue chair inside me and its former

occupant is strolling the grounds,

lost to orderlies and prefects alike.

There’s a light rain starting, new magnolias,

a robe that could be a nun suit or a

johnny, grass sharp if she wears no

sandals. Of course there’s a difference

between craziness and enlightenment, but

history does not give us these examples.

Sometimes, pacing my rooms and lost

in a fantasy about human possibility,

I leave in a trance, go to my car

and drive with music on, and am only

brought back when I finally hear

the voices of strangers: petty, normal,

talking about money or housing.

By a pond I recognize the panic of birds

and the frog floating dead is my language.

Beside myself I try to save myself.

I do it by scarf or needle, pulled from

a world or a part of one, a paradise.