What I Feel Like
Topic: Poetry
Poem for a very small audience

I feel like the girl in the polka-dot dress,
frozen forever in the middle of a cartwheel,
her white pantaloons exposed
above the skirt that covers her face.
Her identity masked, there is only
bald grace and joy in her twirling form.

I feel like a hot thing,
like a peaking burning star,
hotter than I will ever get, feverish,
cruel and pretty in this black ceiling,
looming over a gurgling hot spring
that talks to me deep into the night.

I feel like another shot of whisky
will intensify this intoxication perfectly,
bring the volume in my ears to a roiling swell
that will not deafen me
but will sing from my eyes
like the cacophony of starlings,
buzzing with stunning truth.

I feel like taking a running jump
through the brand new library,
where the rows are long and the ceilings high.
I could turn twenty back flips
through the fiction section
and into the math and aftermath of science,
mocking Joyce or the sad Romantics
before whirling past Pythagoras and Descartes,
Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

I feel tireless in my aging body,
even if the performance isn’t that profound anymore,
even if my well-worn skin is creased and lined
like a street map. I feel like
if you were to look into my face
you might feel like you know me,
like you’ve walked my streets each night,
and will always want to.

I feel like looking up to God
and desire her to see me,
see my pooling green eyes
and how the irises glow
and float in their milky sclera.
I feel like knowing if she made them
and maybe I feel like believing
for these few moments that she did,
because the thought makes me feel like
I'm coming clean and twirling
in a polka-dot dress, frozen forever
in a holy mirror of grace and joy.