A new poem: “Socks, Then and Now”

Gyroscope Review has a new issue coming out.  One of my poems appears in its pages (both print and online).  Check it out here:

Socks, then and now

We’re drinking the water that used to be sky,
We’re standing on ground that used to be sea.
The turning is constant, it’s all on the wheel.

See these socks? The hand-made ones with the stripes?
Do you know where they came from?
Before the skeins of wool? Before the sheep was sheared?

Why they were stars, of course. And storms. And blades of grass, like tongues.
They were buzzing clover. And sucklings of milk.

We should never cease to marvel. At our socks. Or anything else.

(Honeycombs, for instance)
I tell you this because I am old.

When I was younger, I didn’t understand about comings and goings.
Back then, if a seam scratched, if the socks sagged,
I’d snarl and sulk, even as the aunties would knit me a new pair.

But now, I smile, because it all seems so clear.
I’m breathing the dust that used to be rock,
I’m eating the bread that used to be dirt.
And I’m pulling up socks that used to galaxies.

You can try to look for separation between yourself and the rain, but you will not find it.

Now that I am ancient, I expect my socks to rub and gape and finally unravel,
and when they do, (although Lycra takes a long time), I am at peace.