Shuffle On Shuffle Song

(after for with next to Lucille Clifton’s blessing the boats)

I go through the motionless

smoke is flowing through Brooklyn
but people don’t notice because it is the same
color as the sky

I’ve been drinking thinking
about if I could carry your fear around for you


the smoke is heart shaped
but I think I might be the only one who sees
as it escapes into the flat atmosphere

sometimes my heart feels my shape
only centimeters smaller
my skin a useless angel

so when you knock your knuckle into mine
its really like you’re tapping on the pericardium

it contains the root of
all the great vessels


it would be hard but I’d carry it
and when you wanted you could feel it
the fear in doses

and it would make me feel
as though the luminance was constant
and opening up