+ "

Make a list

of everything that’s
ever been

on fire –

Abandoned cars
Trees
The sea

Your mother burned down to the skeleton

so she could come back, born back from her bed, and walk around the
house again, exhausted
in slippers

What else?

Your brain
Your eyes
Your lungs

When you look down
inside yourself
what is there?

You are a walking bag of surgical instruments
shining from the inside out

and that’s just
today

Tomorrow it could be different

When I think of the childhood inside me I think of sunlight dying on
a windowsill

The voices of my friends
in the sunlight

All of us running around
outside our
deaths

Someone is here
to see you
again

Someone has come a long way with their arms out in front of them
like a child

walking down a hallway
at night

Make room for them –
they’re very tired

I wish I could look down past the burning chandelier inside me

where the language begins
to end
and

down

"
— “Nervous System” by Michael Dickman, with thanks to mitochondria

(Source: smith.edu)

23rd July 2012
Tags: Michael Dickman Nervous System thoughts that breathe poetry lit