Clean

Indiscriminate language
drifts slow as air from a tender mouth.
His hair as fickle as straw.
Eyes as constant as emotions of a mother.
He dances like his body was disposed of years ago
on the banks of a river away from visibility
of monetary hands that sought to give pity as staple
amount of nourishment.

I cannot decide whether to touch his feet in respect
or run to speak to a stranger about his delirious character.
I stand - my sweat, the only bodily function that complies
to the man's coming. My thoughts clamor in an unorganized choir
like I hosted wall street on the strands of memory
that relates to uncertainty. But when his taut cheeks
and eyes moving on their own existence
reach the space of conditioned greeting,
I want myself to come back
but I have separated my sight from my body
and I am stiff as a sagebrush waiting for rain.

His hand slid through air like a freight ship crossing ice.
The scent of a sickle having cut a peony garden
rose into approaching night wind.
I shut my eyes to demoralize my senses
from his enveloping sight.

When I open my eyes as natural
as having my first view of pale hospital lights,
a garden that an even a demon or god on a throne
could not create was at my feet.
I heard my name as if it was not mine -
just another strain of grass
lifted from indifferent soil
where its substance is as clean
as the mother who conceived meaning.