I NEED TO DRAW A BASKETBALL
AND I NEED TO DRAW IT GOOD
Living off of luck or bad luck depending
on how you look at it. You look at it
and look at it. Lit sensibility is what kind
of cure? Delay my seam. Approximately
dreaming. Approximately the night terror.
We have tried to draw some things.
Safety in general aviation. The up
and up. The machinery of behavior.
Installation without tools. Adjusted
to accommodate. I drink the new
water. There is no need to hide
this ladder. To linger on an idea
longer. I love that building. It makes
me feel crazy. Now you see. Breaking it
from blocks. That’s a hole. No jokes.
It's trouble. It's all wrong. Someone says
there is an explanation. Orange and
spherical. And right away how you
can go to different different places.
The sides of a tunnel. The edge of
an insect wing. A tool. Bring it to the
body. A foot. A foot to think about
size and the sphere. What does a basketball
look like? How can you tell? This is a question
declaration. Space is also processed
as an idea in minds that look like mouths.
Mouths that are moving and making
stops for moments that make thoughts
in the minds of those that can see that.
IT CAN BE STARTLING TO SEE
A PLANT YOU ONCE KNEW
AND NOW NO LONGER KNOW
They are showing a boat that represents me.
Sometimes you will think, No! to these instructions.
Distance is hard to carry. Tough takes what?
What can you not take back? Back in different days
I was fine with that. You can’t take the boat back.
What the ears hear you can’t take back. Time
cannot be taken back. I laugh a little and a lot.
I cannot take it back. I am not a horizon. I am a hole.
Have a look. I cannot take it back. People tell you
their stories. Their stories of staring and standing.
Sometimes of serious sadness. When sadness is
in a song it can settle. When sadness doesn't settle
it is stuck. This is stuck. More recently evolved
structures stacked on top of more primitive ones.
If the smoke keeps the people away, ok. It's a noise
a bug is making in the dark. That’s like that.
There are records. Here’s a record. The town touches
me too much. I have taken time here. I cannot take it back.
For your window I would be a willow. Trees tend
to grow in clusters. Take this into consideration.
I cannot take it back. Realism and variety.
THE TINY IDEA I HAD
WHILE I WAS PANICKING
I had a lack of legs. I, a tiny problem.
For cameras, see concealed cameras.
For chessboard, see cigarette. For
microdots, see microdots. For pencil,
for pipe, for playing card, see ring.
For self-destruction of, for shoe, stamp,
see cows, see cows. Just explaining.
Not taking a position. Someone says,
The temporal bone is the most difficult bone
in the body. Someone says, It is the most
intimidating bone in the body. The temporal
bone making moments all along the ear canal.
Another animal was making a noise
and for the longest time I think it is
the animal that is me. Animals with ancient
names occupy a ship in another book
of real inventory. Not the book I took
for taking pictures. I am panicking. I am
panicking and the book I took says,
for escape equipment, see the eye.
THEY WILL CALL YOU
DIFFERENT THINGS
Strange. Odd. Unknown.
Occasional. Nonsense.
Deviation. Flickering. A circle.
A wheel. A cycle. The uncertain.
I walk an inventory of colors.
Wave. Ocean. Open water.
I collect an inventory of colors
but I cannot remember them.
I over and over again forget them.
Collect them and then forget them.
Collect them and then forget them.
Someone recalls something
about Isaac Newton. How
do you know a color? A prism.
A dark room. The right angle.
The sun saying something.
The blue light leading to the idea
of light as a thing. A walk to somewhere.
New and opposite thoughts.
Eyes closed. An observation.
The sea saying, See how nothing
stays the same?
Emily Pettit teaches poetry at Flying Object in Hadley, Massachusetts.
