Things You Have To Do
Throw rocks in the river, even if you don’t
have kids along. Not the small, flat stones
meant for skipping: find a fist-sized rock
and chuck it hard. Hear the hollow gulp
as it hits. Whenever you arrive anywhere,
open the car door, stretch your arms, and
sample the air. Touch the keys of pianos
you do not own. Touch velvet. Touch silk.
Close your eyes and turn toward the sun.
Sniff the crumbling bindings of old books:
paper or leather. Run the tap as cold as it
gets. Splash water in your face. Do it again.
(Imagine changing nothing about yourself
but having to run away from a war. Hold
yourself hostage with that thought. Who
would come with you and what five things
would you bring?) Taste all the toothpick-
speared cheese samples in the fancy shop.
Don’t buy any. Find twenty bucks in last
year’s overcoat pocket. Drive home past
your neighbor’s house. His whole living
room wall has become a TV screen full of
one newscaster’s impassive face. No one is
watching it. Sit at your kitchen table. Cry.
Opposite, The Same
The way a sunset grabs your attention when it’s still
a sober grey dam with yellow light spilling over it,
but then something amps up the neon, so you have
to sift through your too-big purse for your phone and
try to crop out the car window after you grab a picture
of a thing that’s like an argument—more and more
intense by the second. Except there’s no disagreement
here. Someone else is even standing, holding her phone
sideways and just over her head (now you’ve both parked
your cars and gotten out). Cloud banks—ruby, purple,
a whole tide of molten gold. I have read about the exact
amount of shaking in earthquakes that makes people
flee buildings inside which they’re ducking under tables
and into doorways. This is the opposite, but it’s also
the same. We’re all outside singing Whoa, fixed on an
event we can’t control or stop watching. Some of us are
even using our phones to call people we love: Go outside—
right now! Today’s last words, writ in harmless flame.
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