The third jump wakes the turtle, expatriate of the brackish backwater.
And when no one is watching, the tides – inch by inch,
neither salt nor fresh – erode my half acre. My half-life

spent sideswiping mile markers of gravel and tar
and spinning
spinning elliptically with inflated verve. Summoned

back not just to indentured space, but
slingshot to lace and latticework,
the familiar linens and pillows still holding

our heads’ heat and indented shapes.
All trace evidence,
all reluctant keepsakes.

I am a planet again.

I remember closing time when the cabana boys appeared.
They would gather the sodden towels arch with sifted sand
and roll their rickshaws along the boardwalk. The day ceiling

would lift and the wind would jet, unstoppable.
It is last call at two.
Only time enough for bison on cave walls

and your two tanned legs counterpoised and
drawn from life – a virtual anatomy impossibly lithe
and life-like and fleet, but

no match
for the long
distance.

Draw the blinds.
Secure your cubicle,
your private metropolis of undress. Close

your mind, open your lips
and lip-sync
to the sing-song of earth’s evening.

There is dust in this dwindling afternoon, and footprints.
The residue of planetary alignment. A particulate
afterburn that absorbs moisture and refracts

the light that’s left. Give up, day.
Give up, won’t you? Allow
all the voiced displeasures, the slouching torsos and clipped hair,

the plucked brows cluttering the aisles to exit.
They leave at last, the rusted trucks that clog
the avenues. They turn off side streets sooner than expected.

The vapor trail calls, tongue to tarmac.
Time
to circle back.

Who can imagine a wind like this? This
pulmonary therapy of pummeled oxygen?
The tight air has exhausted its gusto.

One last chance
to be
disqualified.

So far from the pulse
only a middle-aged star could offer,
I will lurch back along the known corridors.

Neighborhoods once familiar, or pre-determined or even
extra-sensory. The end result
the poorest translations, slang of a tone-deaf linguist

all quietly shelved, tucked into ramshackle files
intending impending loss. Lost
eventually, as the fingers of day workers dig

to find the misplaced molecules, the one iota
excised and held with surgical gloves and
poorly disguised distaste.

It is a tired and prodigal beckoning.
Some ways. All means.
No matter.

I am a planet again.

– C.M. Clark