The Untouchable Windchime
Susan Brennan
There’s a wind chime on the front doorknob
and I feel like I can’t remove it.
Who knows who put it there
keeping a sleeping Self safe
or listening for the lover to come home.
I don’t know why I need anything
in a right way.
Why I have to believe in an
alphabetical anything;
the bills must be filed
the books on the shelf
pasta boxes standing upright.
Will something always reoccur?
The rain is saying this has never
reoccurred – this falling towards you
right now
this wash, this blessing
this unafraid to say.
Tethered to daily
I can hardly believe the lightning;
its tenacious fingers
scratch open the wind
ionize the flowers.
A tree cracks downward and the whole street
is out.
I spent the afternoon hammering a two-step stool
following directions
though they were sparce and withholding.
I hardly know where those
two steps will lead me:
will there be voices?
will I hire a night watchman?
will I close in on the Northern Lights?
Those erratic phosphorescent smears
sloppy love letters from the Sun.
And will I get it unright this time
sturdy and stepping up
into dark
Susan Brennan is a poet, screenwriter and activist. Her poems can be found in her chapbooks and book, Blue Sirens (Dancing Girl Press), numinous (Finishing Line Press), and Drunken Oasis (Rattapallax Press) and various publications. She curates poetry programming (WanderWord) at Wilco’s Solid Sound Music Festival, MASS MoCA. With a circus-arts company, she co-produced and staged her poem Chromoluminarism about Georges Seurat’s final painting (RGB NYC). She has written film scripts, a one million hit plus award winning web-series, pitched film stories, and co-produced a short film, of which have premiered at Austin, Venice and Tribeca Film Festivals, as well as a screening at MoMA. Being a part of Lotus's Spring Clover Edition has her feeling sassy through and through. See what she’s up to at www.tinycubesofice.com.