An Argument Against Time


Once I couldn’t complete sentences. Once


I almost got a sentence—forgery, uttering,


& a third charge I’ve since forgotten (the years


do that). I used to wash my bruises in strangers’


kitchen sinks, I used to ask warm water to dissolve


me, please, already. I’m somewhere else, now,


sleeping in clean sheets, making my bed


where I want to & not where I fall. But, listen,


the body remembers—we all know that.


What I sometimes forget is that the mind


& the heart & the rest of this headless world


remember, too. Hush. That’s the sound


of a tree growing rings, that’s the sound


of my feral reaching out & up, calling to me


not as a branch but as the roots— that’s the sound


I make when a man walks in & out of me


& I think, oh, & I feel it, I feel me.

Copyright © 1999 – 2023 Juked