Airplane Mode

If I were free, what would I write?

Fly away!, he said, Free as a bird!

I flapped my arms to carry the joke.

I was about to board a plane.

But the joke isn't funny unless we know I'll be back.

I've a foot fix'd in Oakland.

My heart beats a little harder, wondering:

Did I get the joke?

Is the resolution of ambiguity centered on the certainty

that even by driving me to the airport

to sit in a box that is thrown by air and fire

to a far away land of ports

that he is not sending me away?

Or, even so, is he sending me like one might

send the far end of a rubber band elsewhere,

temporarily, before the band returns to itself?

How much of it was a joke?

I hear the memory of his voice whispering in my mind

the same way he said,

quiet as an exhale, the first time I left,

to me,

to himself,

to no one in particular:

"I just want to see you again."

And I locked it in my heart like a promise:

I'll be back. 

He needs me to be free, so that coming back means anything.

Prepare for takeoff - 

Before setting my phone to airplane mode, I text:

Miss you already

His reply sneaks in, just as I disconnect:

I will see you again!

His last message, trusting me to keep him an honest man.

A ship by any other name

Once upon a time, there was a ship 

without a name, that left its port

encircled Earth, returned again,

from ocean to mouth of that river. 

Replaced, repaired, where wood had been

splintered, lost, remade the shape - 

called Theseus' Ship, its owner's name

and since, we've asked if it's the same

as one that sailed so long ago

from that port at the mouth of that river. 

 But what of questions yet unasked?

While we wonder after a ship

with each and every beam replaced,

Yet what of Theseus?

Was he not changed?

Does his name still mean the owner?

Does ownership slip if you've gone and grown different?

If taken apart, observed, polished, discarded

replaced, or rewarded,

the parts of yourself that you had,

and you have, is it still you who has them?

Let anyone saying different

establish that they are the same

person from start to end

of a single sent

ence 

And what of the name? 

I'm thinking perhaps it's not the riddle, but askers

who've lost sight of the ship

whether same or different -

- consider we never remember the name of the ship,

but only its owner's 

Perhaps the thing that does not change

is that the ship knows its own name

I don't claim that the name stays unchanged,

but just that it's not we who know it. 

(

And this poem: not these words, but this poem

has endured visions, revisions, moments, reverses

It's been a long trip 'round the sun

since you asked for a poem for your birthday

Am I the same person who'd already been writing?

Is this the same Earth that we stood on last year?

Uncountable water hurtles

out from the mouth of the shape of the river.

A ship returns

Reaching embrace of the ocean.

This poem is for you.

This poem is for you.

This poem is for you. 

)

Tunnel Vision

Hey there you

In the hole

At the long spotlight end

Of the tunnel vision

You're feeling abandoned, aren't you?

You are frozen

Feet, knees, legs

Locked to the ground

Can't even feel the frostbite of

empty air

0 Kelvin

You are trapped in the moment

between when you realized the fall -

wind knocked out of your heart,

arms outstretched - 

 the moment between that, and

the in-breath you never took,

lips parted with the words you kept inside

Swallowed

Was it that? Which knocked your heart into your gut?

The words that you saw would not be heard,

and so you made sure of it?

I can almost see a snowflake drifting

past your face

Surprised by the sudden cold

You are alone and frozen

not in that time or place

But in that feeling

Choosing to stay silent and frozen

and to keep your hope

like a grip on a last coin you'll never spend 

 know you can't move.

But what if I told you: I'm you?

And right now, you are not in a hole.

We are in a warm couch in a house in the future

Where kitchens have music

There's a broad table where the sun shines in

And people who care

You live here and you're happy

Even if you're still in the hole,

you live here now.

You made it.

We all make it.