I Stayed Up Late Watching Airplanes
       

roll the horizon. And thought of you,
and what the world was for:
waffles, dumptrucks, Willie Nelson.

Sometimes recalling the smell
of steak frying helps
the way strangers help—by accident.

The ocean helps for a couple of weeks.
Sticks help. Someone says Get up,
and that too can be nice.

Sometimes xylophones sound
in a distance you won't see again.

In Connecticut translators work
late into the night after
mistaking panic for picnic.

Toothpicks help, as do buttons
and the undoing of buttons.
As do bunnies. Also ten dollars.
Also compromise and repairmen.

What I like is to lower the bar,
then my family and friends fit in

and the letters we didn't write
and aren't intending to write now.

A couple of people
alk into a bar and that helps.

Or sometimes helps. One's mind
can be difficult to enter, and
once there there's a certain amount

of advertising and heavy machinery
and a city constantly reassembled
one citizen at a time.

There's an insect
holding what looks like a hammer
I don't know why:

A boy walks out and sits at the top
of the steps imagining
when the talking stops he'll

sneak down, It's not as much standing
as standing by,
from a different angle

over and over again.
It's not so much jumping;
it's letting go of the ground.

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Copyright © 2014 Michael Teig All rights reserved
from Parcel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission