A Poet Writes Technical Manuals for Jets

Some days are just socked in
I sit at this desk, my life suspended
In the air around me, like particles
Of fog, each grey icy stubborn
Piece of it clenching a painting, budding
Flower, trip South, a memoir
holding on but not falling -- baiting the light,
come here Light resists gravity
I sit in the middle of all this and feel
The hoarfrost pricking my skin, harsh
But it’s only art, unreleased

I am more kin to special relativity
Than the linear processes popular around here
But I balance along them, blondly, teetering,
Because these paths
Are my job, and I have to eat
But it makes me feel even more alone
To watch my neural gardens reconfigure
This way.

See, I just can’t make this work feel important.
I could be in a boat, saving.
I could be delivering a baby.
I could be writing a poem, right now.
Things fall where they’re meant
To fall. I float.