Bobby Bolt
SOME MORNINGS YOU KNOW IT BY THE SYMPTOMS
Index, middle, and thumb fingers
go numb right as they get to work,
even start to hurt a little in that
frostbitten way, which is to say
they ache with absence. Some heat
this body can only borrow.
Some mornings when I don’t know
where else to go I start with a title,
because I know best how to try
and live up to a better idea
of myself—calling out a stranger’s
name and hoping they’ll arrive.
I have been so unkind to these two
good hands; their softness only
a trick to hide the scrapes and scars
resulting from mostly looking too far
in another direction. Knowing where
you’re going is a real superpower,
you might as well say you can see
through walls. And in the Poetry
Hall of Justice they’re counting
all the ways a day might get saved
without showing up and razing
half the city. Some mornings you
know it by the symptoms: bedsheets
suddenly too heavy to leave, murky water
rising, sliding under the door and still I
must snap my bones into place and face
the day. This world is almost never
waiting, but still I say a quiet Thank you
to whatever I find outside, Thank you
for this invitation, for all this touching.