Oh, It’s Vata Time.

Let the cat in.
Shivering in bed. Put a sweater on.
Then the sweat of the Sushumna hot flash, then the
sulphur sweat of the fever.
Take sweater off.
The push throb push throb push throb inside the crown of my head
(Sahasrara lifting).
Son calling, asking how to get his whites white (I am not kidding!).
“Should I use bleach?”
Nurse phoning about my father’s meds and once more
I call his doctor. (Blades shaped like the leaves of iris ripping at my aura—
“Why can’t I handle this?”)
Father leaves voice (agitated) mail saying he needs me to pay a bill.
“Come soon as I have had it for three days!”

Put sweater on.
Trying to sleep (“You need to rest.”)
But the dog is barking, and lawns are being mown, and is that an effin’ nail gun?
(“You need to rest!)
Reading to fall asleep, the letters fall off the page, the book falls off the bed.
Internal lava surge, rip off sweater. Blue jay squawks.

Let the cat in.
Occipital ridge on ice pack.
Watching the bowing branches outside my window.
(“I am worthy of love. I am worthy of love.”)
I got vertigo in the mountains of Colorado.
Edges of roads rose up like north shore pipeline waves (wall of fear) to wash me away.

(“Must be productive. Must be productive.”)
Even in sickness this thought whips me.
Brushing the cat wondering, “Is this as important as anything else? Do all actions have the same value?”

How is it that my sister Patty and my friend Patti both have had their infected jaws drilled by a dentist? Do you know two Patty’s/Patti’s with the same condition? (Is this meaningful?)

Generating roots through the soles of my feet as I walk the dog around the block, and arrange these words in my pulsing head.
The leaves and I are drying out.
And I think, “The dead cannot feel the sun on their face or hear
the wind in the trees.”

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Editor: Travis May

Photo: Author’s Own