Falling Through a Chair Without Pants

I know why
this chair holds me up,
keeps me from falling through
its tattered corduroy and wood and foam,
just as I know why
I need pants to go outside.

But once, just once,
I'd like to fall between the fabric,
into the space between things
and customs and what should be,
a naked, descending angel,
and be free.

Parallax

The sun lounges on high,
reclined,
resting its legs
on ottoman clouds.
I watch it doze,
drifting off myself,
in a hammock,
the gentle river air
caressing my hair
and cooling my cheek.

For you the sun is already sinking
from its reverie on high,
to stalk the street corners
and lurk the alleys,
its last shady dealings
before crawling behind the world.

Parallax,
a different point of view.
I wish you could see it
where
I am.

Little Child

He pulls the blanket taut
against the tucked corners
to his shoulders, his neck,
his chin, his nose.
Eyes framed by cloth and hair
scan the twisted hands and fingers
the moon sends grasping for him.
His heart thrashes in his chest,
beating against his ribcage
as he finds himself cornered
by the unknown.
The startled scream is answered
by his mother
whose soft lullaby and gentle touch
pulls down the shades of his eyes
and the fear from his mind.

He presses his face to the door,
tracing spirals of grain with a finger,
and looks at the shoulders,
the neck, the nose,
a face framed by the circle of glass
and deadbolt and chain,
and twisted into a grimace
by the long beard, the long cloth.
He feels the safety in his hands,
the soft click and gentle weight;
the metallic reassurance
pulls the fear from his mind.