WANNA

Wanna make-believe and

turn ourselves to smoke,

be blizzards in May,

or umber rasping in the autumn air?

Wanna cut out all the crosstalk

by letting our bodies parley the palaver?

How ‘bout we quarantine the truth

and flummox our way through the in-betweens?

Wanna double-dip our hard-won wisdom 
in the deep-end

and cull from our catastrophes splendor

like fleas from chickadees?

I’ll take you to a skinny place, if you insist,

where all is snug and close.

And from there we can make our getaway

by taking water to a cactus,

by returning nests to tempest trees.

But understand: 
there are no strings levitating this lyric.

And I ain’t no lyre, neither.

More like a chisel, a chipping,

and a slave inside its marble.