Clambering

CLAMBERING

My “I’m sorries” float up underneath
the bassline, heart-monitor spikes just beneath
bluesy black quarter notes hang-gliding
along a clothesline bass clef. The spikes cannot
rise any higher.

I reach a quarter rest, a little lightning
bolt of silence. “I’m sorry,” I say into the
empty space. We’ve flatlined. I want
to breathe air into lungs that shouldn’t

have fallen in. Sometimes I only hear myself;
I only hear the bassline thumping in my chest
and I hang-glide along the clothesline into
brick walls.

I forget you have an orchestra inside of you. Your
blood pumps at ¾ time and I forget
your violins screech out a different wail
than mine; I forget that your toes tap in your
brown suede-y clogs to a different time.

I forget that my bassline thumps so
loud I can’t hear anything else but it pounding
in my ears, richocheting off mushy grey walls and pink
tissue streaked with vessels. Mostly I forget
that my bassline is not the only one.

And “I’m sorry,” I say, one last time,
and this time the top of the spike
pokes through the clothesline
like a mountain peak peering out
at the world above a misty ring of clouds.