have a banana

whipping through traffic
on my busy way to work:
buzzed by butterfly

Sometimes you're at the bottom of a deep dark hole, looking up at the sky, wondering how you got down so hard so far so fast, only to then look down and see, then feel, then understand, the shovel in your own dirty hands.

my feet all blackened
from the sandals that I wear
yuck, put them back on

So you figure out a way to dig yourself back out: little steps you can punch into the sides of your hole. You can use your hands and feet sometimes; sometimes that shovel is pretty important; you can also use words to create these steps, pretty words, harsh words, words that bite and shimmer like beautiful tropical poisonous snakes. When this doesn't work, use coffee or a good full-bodied red wine. When this doesn't work, use tears. When this doesn't work, use music. When this doesn't work, terror sets in.

summer sky at night:
all the things you thought you were
don't seem that way now

So maybe you're stuck halfway, or maybe a little closer to the top, but you're not there yet. You don't think you can escape this hole, you've dropped the shovel and the wine long ago, you're shivering and angry all the time. The moon's up there, just a little slice of birthday cake or a closed eye, you can feel the breezes and the shouts of people, but the idea that you can ever get out is almost laughable. So you laugh but the echoes make this intolerable. It's always the echoes.

watermelon feast
children sticky ear to ear
nothing else matters

And then suddenly those echoes are real, there IS laughter, you're soaking in it. You look around and there's no hole, really: you're standing at a children's t-ball game, watching your son walk up to bat, his cherry-red wobbly helmet far too big for his smallish blondish head, his uniform shirt down past his shorts, the bat might as well be an irrigation pipe. He manages to whip the thing around and tap the ball, stands there to admire his work like he's Barry and just put one in the Cove, except it's really more like just another infield grounder off to where three second basekids await it. We all yell "Run!" and he remembers to do that, skinny legs pumping away; your daughter, the first base coach tonight, looking fashionable in a summer dress and raphaelite curly hair, is urging him on, we all are, everything is, the world is turning so fast, the wheels are so set in motion. Your son arrives at first, he and your daughter give each other five. You've forgotten where the hole is. You've forgotten that there was ever a hole at all.

walking to the car
throw your arms around the world
things will be okay