echo

Visual by Kari Trail

everything feels soft soft soft today

like freshly dried dark wash denim

hugging skin as egg-shell cotton does

wings opening in the gentle wake of

summer breeze across orange water

skip skip skip into open palms

gift for the lack of forced undertaking

or perhaps for the lack of force thereof

mouth open wide just to swallow rain

throat warm like a horse’s sweet neigh

the brush of grass grass grass on ankles

like a promise like a wave like hot skin

like the lake lapping up on the pebbles

it keeps coming in gentle pleats and folds

crimping continuously against odds

eternal kiss emboldened by salt steaks

on solemn moss rocks standing ashore

sun shimmering like a flick flick flick

of your wrist during the light golden hour

ochre rays catching on your watch

notice your eyes staring up into the blue

of not-clouds not-birds not-stars it seems

not not not anything but the atmosphere

staring down and holding you in an embrace

wondering if this is what limbo feels like

wondering if you repeat words just to

feel feel feel something in your peach body

words soft as they bounce back and forth

in the glossy walls of your pink brain

as echoes do in a white-walled chamber

you are absolutely nothing to the world

but the world is absolutely everything to you

and your cold cold cold toes know it

and your round round round eyes see it

and your sweet sweet sweet mouth tastes it

so you dissolve into the green syllables

that form like brown sugar on your lips

waiting for some small small small response

you’re not quite sure how to give in the

sphere sphere sphere that is the earth

a glass marble insinuated into our seams

some beautiful keepsake that swallows you

in the glow glow glow of light that peeks out

from every crack in every single direction