Linguist

 It's like a telephone call from the gut,

a mirror garlanded with white dahlias where the moon lives

behind the glass, shifting,

swinging a railroad lantern,

calling you by an unsuspected name.

Now you are a brick and must throw yourself.

Now you are a throat and must sing yourself

until you fall to the flagstones empty, an overturned ewer.

Desert the war, go home to your bed with its hand-sewn quilt.

There is a woman there

or a man

or no one--it doesn't matter. Go. 

Now you are a blooming vine, and the earth moves 

with you each time you step.

Beware the imbecile with his scythe.

Carry the fragrance of God in your laced boot.

Use playing cards to confound thieves.

Find Venus on the night horizon during a crescent moon.

Keep an oriole, a falcon, and a buzzard.

Live alone, 

but with the door open

so that April can call you with her rain-voice

like a petal volcano

birthing bees from your tongue in new language,

the thing you longed for

now--in astonishment--named.

_________

for Sunday Muse 202.