Spinning

The only whole heart is a broken heart.

The Kotzker Rebbe

i know the feel of road on skin,

the consciousness of speed

that’s never rush enough,

the edge tracks lead to

and the train-crash in,

that free fall down

the rabbit hole

and no end.

of climbing back through

all i had become:

a darker element,

that other one.

of facing yet again

my parent, son,

daughter, spouse

i abandoned

for the crack house.

and i am scared, god,

scared of what’s ahead.

i’ve backtracked every mile,

distance measured

not in time or place,

but by annihilating stasis.

now upon this crossroad

every way i turn a mirror.

at my heel the small

uninterrupted deaths i chose.

at hand the future, i am told,

my every impulse wants to flee.

sometimes it’s just a shadow

or the light that etches out the trees.

sometimes i see its face—

my own—staring back at me.

and though i form its bones

and breathe its breath,

it seems a wounded animal

i want to love outside my reach.

but, god, i swear this time—

this time—

i will go slow towards it,

tame and feed it every day,

just a bit.

until it follows me

around like the sun.

until it sits beside me

in the moonlight

quiet and calm.

and the shadows in the sparkling water

show a paw and hand,

until we blend.

the same when,

spinning in the wind,

i take its shape, i bend.

the leaves, my soul, the air one skin.

some circle in me left unbroken

or a broken circle,

that, by entering,

i mend.