Crip Time
I.
I just sit here, long breath
you, and I, can find that lemonade time: tea, coffee, drip
time with him as she loosens the buckle, you drop the crutch
if we want to find time for us breathing, with a sip
we need to make time in our production line
and in the making of time, here, the circle wheeling,
is our dawn, our dusk.
My time is not mine
Our time is not ours
But time, time, we say
and when were you last there? Not a tick or a tock
side by side I am still loading her chair
Catch my breath, here, for you, my eye has no time
as my lid beats down — no sight for the digital numbers
Let them eat cake, I say, let them infest the office
Just because
is no reason to rise
just because
is a reason to query
just because
is not just, not just, only just
good enough
for some, in time,
not me
II.
Ein Augenblick: wink of the eye
only just only just just now
The corridor is empty, of course, and the elevator is long gone.
Empty chairs, row upon row, pages of a thin book
fingering gaps I read a dance of expansion, a past
breath of width, the wheel turned, just so
parked first at an angle, and, with decorous shuffle
metal legs uncross elegantly, table plain in lift off
the structure breathed out and settled around you.
We all turned to find the next opening, time's gap
the pause of frantic steer or calm maneuver
and we learned to hold the beads of time, I, and you
as we blinked, and the room shifted, all our breaths
condensed into a parchment, a palimpsest,
scraped raw knees, dinged sides, yet inscribed
in this empty corridor, the abandoned hall, cold tea.
Production methods, assembly, a line, half-forgotten:
we danced here.
III.
Summer suns outside, red hot stars move
as I burn a shadow into the ground. The silhouette
is uneven, wide, melded: heavy cast iron.
My time is not mine: drifts away, steam sears, oceans
I remember the continent of the crips
gaps and openings
their words of comfort
glancing tectonics
a shudder
a wink
just because, sometime,just becausefor a cause
Our time is not ours:
bedtime
morning time
lunch
midday
blood beat and sugar scale, insulin's tick of drowsy bees
I am here she is not now he is we are and I hurt
but what might be just
might be just that
just all there is
But time, time, we say, we pray: whose mouths mumble belated,
lately, too early, they are at the wrong time, again uptight and tense
with the beat of an eye, unspin, unravel, and stop,
only stop.
Say a word that opens the gate, and rolls out and out, between us
time the word, I say, let it beat like an astonished dove
as the waters recede and abandoned shapes drip dry in the morning sun
just circle
time
disabled lilacs
disabled worlds tumble in the lilac machine
disabled dreams try out love for size
disabled machines wheel in the night
disabled love delights in mountain terrain
disabled lilacs smell of the ice worlds
disabled mountains hold us open to the sky
disabled nights shudder with aching gears
disabled skies make the world disappear
I float on my pillow
navigate the veins
sing to you
dance a disabled world