Ready for Anything

As if backyard tennessee reaches the edge of the pacific
chipping granite til it bleeds sweet tea
crickets refusing to be reined or digitized
too hot for mason jars or any lids

Maybe dinner can distract everyone
shoes for somewhere other than feet
a voice you can scale fish with
fingers the meteorologist couldn’t decode
hopping from hotels to hardware stores

When the only clue is the last apple
whose seeds between our toes wiggling
like bait, waiting for something so thin
you can’t handle it without bleeding
skin uncalloused, well-lathered,
sliding like a horse galloping in a hail storm,
manhole cover flying toward me like a frisbee

Anyone can fly if they totally deny the road
the edge twinkling as a warning or temptation
caution is cowardice, a destination i didn’t know i had
reveals few options, reluctant connections
my pockets full of adapters and patch cords
a current so direct i barely get out of its way

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Dan Raphael feels most fortunate to have had two poetry collections published in 2020: Moving with Every, from Flowstone Press, in June; and Starting Small, from Alien Buddha Press, in October. Other recent poems appear in Unlikely Stories, Cathexis NW, Mad Swirl and Blue Pepper. Most Wednesdays, Dan writes and records a current events poem for The KBOO Evening News.