In the parentheses that happen between sleeps.

***

On the blacktop where I preferred not to slam
the tethered yellow ball or join the cadence of play.

***

Alongside a giddy absorption when affection for the narrator
is paramount, when she and he and you and I are further at sea
and much closer to home than all our fleet imaginings.

***

Finally stretched out on the couch and rolling
toward the paperbacked thrills of evening
where the countries we long for occupy a far larger place
in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be.

***

Wanting to pledge allegiance against my parents’ orders
subscribe to the myth of having it both ways
of reading against the grain for different outcomes
that are not consequences, even as the awful and momentous
transpire in our name on the rocky shale of a desert theatre.