Meditation

    Sit quietly long enough and the river    I hear will be the courseof my own blood. Everything I know    I have to forget: the champ of lichenchewing down boulder and the unsustainable    thrill of the spectrumat magenta and lapis, those    and air’s heft, the oppression    of fluorescence. Marrow,proximity, its loss: the world    gives us too much, truly, to bear.    Science says everythingmust quiet so we can continue. Rather, we must    quiet everything. I hardly feel    the cords I’ve worn so oftenI don’t notice anymore the stain from the time    when my uncle swiveled from sinkto cupboard as he’d done daily    seven decades, and failedto see me standing with a full cup.    Forget it. It’s fine, I said. Distracted    by the heat of surprise, practicallydancing, I reached around what I now rememberwas the heart and lung part of his body.    I am remembering the muscles    that built his body, but not    what he said, not the texture    of the towel I must have needed.I remember everyone laughing, evenMother, the sound of whose approaching    steps I can’t recall. Mother chose    maple for her brother’s coffin and,    because she did not want us to have to think about it, for her own. These things    are true, but I don’t let them vex me    most of the time. Let me bemore specific. The maple floorboards    of that old house, their vibrancyprotected by a nearly impenetrable finish:    I never thought about that floor.