When you’re born, there’s a breeze

It gently picks you up,

carrying the scent “What’s next?”

on it’s currents

Then—18 years later—you find everything you once thought

fixed,

immovable

whipping up around, blindingly:

 

                        Sisters shining in dresses

little bears now dwarving everyone,

                        mapping out the world you used to jump rope on

            Everyone’s finding their place,

            getting caught up in this tornado

And you thought you could cling to your brick chimney!

But suddenly, W-2s and tattered photography whirl round.

            You wonder if you’ll be left behind…

                        Or taken up in the Twister

 

Who will be my somebodies?

                        The ones I link up,

conga line with?

                        Snapped up to ride out the

whirlwinds together?

                        It’s so hard to stay

still, but maybe,

                        if we anchor each other…

The toss and turn

                        will have no hold over us.

Our hands, bound together, won’t be torn from our limbs.

 

How can they prance about as corn stalks and big barn doors

                                    ricochet?

They laugh at tempests

                                    They fly kites into cyclones

                        These are the somebodies

                        I wish to be my someones.