When the floor disappears I lie against it,
touch it cold, find a bass line to pull me along.
I wait for night, pray for the sound of a storm.
It’s not that I need to take down the stars—
I’m not an astronaut or a saint. It’s how I glow hot
behind my eyes, this spinning sunwise when
I’m feeling faint. This might demand divining rods
or demons or hawthorn but I need to find a place
where I’ll never be this dizzy again. I want to know
the physics of it. The medicine. I need to stop
wondering at the coast. My blooming is vigilant
even in this heat. But I’d use any tool to take faith apart,
make it whole, strike God as she struck me—
with a garrote. My mouth curls around a slow breath,
I drink water as fast as I can, remind myself that
I only pass out sometimes, always come back whole.
I still ask God for the tools to stand and walk
while breathing. To know quiet in the back of a car.
With a bedroom this near to the road I hear
every emergency, every little whisper in the trees,
every drop of rain to hit the window and the dirt.
This faith is a pulse and like my pulse it is erratic—
I follow it anyway, just in case there’s music there,
a rhythm to hammer into the floor at home.
