Eilis

In the mirror now, I am the waver
of a bird’s wing
as it contemplates diving. The pines
rise over the house and some nights
shower bits of their shaggy heads
down on the roof. The thump
of things falling apart used to jar me.
Isnt it funny how fear grows
more tempered as you grow
accustomed to sound. At midnight, the moon
shines through the window. I think
it is a mirror, but I am nowhere
in its puddle. I lull over it like some
fallen narcissus head only to find
I am looking out
from underneath. I can’t see
from down here. I hear the pines
singing. I can only keep
sinking / and hope there is another
bottom to rise through. Another mirror
where I can become, maybe
the whole of the bird


Granite breaks the ground. Open
me and you’ll find it, also, sparkling
between the rungs of my ribs. The
empty spaces hunger to be filled
and there is no criteria for filling. I sweep dead
leaves from the emerging
granite heads dotting the edges
of the path and stand a moment, absorbing
the weight of what I know
is to come. If decay is certainty
why is it laced so with fear. Why
does it sit like rock
in our pockets. Pulling us
down. Pulling us down. The question
repeats: how are you feeling. Do
you remember those pictures
of mountains growing? Rock crushing
together to form some greater rise
and then standing, folded. Waiting
to be ground down minutiae by minute. Each
raindrop is a force that can not be
escaped. There is only the understanding
that someday—this is going
to wear me all away. The build of rock
settles in the tips of my fingers. This
is how everything begins