michaela sampas
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at 7 am
the blinds swing, the neighbor-children call
for their father, or a mother I don’t know
And the bathroom line wanes
Out the window
I know the order now
I picture a sweet line of heads
A chorus row of coarse
morning voices
Legless and high
I know my name
the time
I know my body
Is composed of urchins and lichens
the day is here
she chatters from the hall
I like the children
I like their miniature shadows
The foamy iridescent form,
They take in the window, on the walk out front where they bat around a small ball
Thrust it narrow cracks
it strikes me
How accidental and miraculous
children can get something stuck in nothing
over and over again
the exacting archeological discovery of a slat in a wall
a perfect fit for four marbles and a swelling pinky finger
I like their even gaze of me,
Never a flinch, but waxing stare
unimpaired at the sight of blanched cheeks and six or seven bags of miscellaneous objects,
I leave at the door of my bedroom,
Or the seat of my pew
The slough of paper informationals
never make it up the stairs.
never the right day
Three heads that turn their rope to gaze at me
Do they know we have the same eyes?
The same sort of father
I have taken their helmets,
Their wheels and lights
Did he tell them? Do they already know?
We share walls and mice we don’t mind
before the men come
with peanut butter lures
every winter, every summer, every spring
We put foil in the floors,
And watch them chew it out, rhythmically
I like the nameless neighbor-children
their chatter is untempered by the glass
which gapes open, I guess, exactly where I hit it open
A half-hearted attempt at air,
which is now permanent
Can they hear the water running down my back?
Can they see my foamy iridescent form?