MAKING NOTHING


​​

It brings you down, exerts pressure,

bending you toward your version

of done. It numbs your hands, this

handling, shoving it through

streets, sneakers bleating

against asphalt. You can walk

an answer. It can be measured

in steps. Watch it

get smaller, tighter, watch its right

angles melt. See it skate, tear forth

like a screed, make you chase it

as it hastens. Observe watching eyes

narrow tight, discovering what you call

work in it. Forget it for a sec. Then obsess.

It changes just when you think it might

end. Unfurls a nuclear tendril, blossoms

into the unkempt part you love

best. Mess. A sudden capacity

to sweat. Thinning out

to where it tips. You aren’t sure

that its shape will keep. But shepherd

it, nurture the veer, close in

on finality. But what shape it is

supposed to be—

or ever was—a mystery. Your hands

free. There was a zenith. And now it’s this—



            (what is

                        it)
                                           small enough
                                           to be kicked.