The Shape of It
       

I wake up and inherit the world
as anybody has left it.
Perhaps later, some windowless thinking.
A red goat stares at me
from the kitchen table, his confident
black eyes moving
in slow passes across my face.
It goes on like this.
I greet my strangeness and crawl
inside it like a sleeping bag.
Now I will solve my problems.
Now I will emerge in the shape of my destiny.
The road down into one's "Inner Life"
is paved with ecstatic visions
and people whose phone numbers
you have deleted.
Some days my sadness boils over.
I lay on the hardwood floor
and do a breathing exercise
to help my bellybutton
meet my spine.
The first element of relaxation
is giving up.
Then comes the really beautiful part.

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Copyright © 2014 Wendy Xu All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission