grip

I worry, you know. It makes me feel tight and twisted, seeing cares like leaves caught in the wind laying down a gold carpet on the shoulders of the road. I can't dance fast enough, searching for light wherever it lays, crystal fever fighting all the shadows. Don't ever want to let go. Prying fingers off, loosening the grip. Whatever it is that you can't give up is the thing you really need to.
Disengage.
Find the balance of caring. The carp in the pond outside the museum might care deeply about the thickly lacquered carvings, pottery with a bottomless finish wrapped up in minute silk stitches, but the carp can't stop the cocky teen who touches where it says, "Do Not". They know enough to let go. They swim, and they dream of their cousins caught in scratchy black ink climbing up the parchment, but it's all the same to them. It should be all the same to me. To love, to care, but not to grip. Sometimes my hands are so tight the white knuckle bones peel through the skin, tendons strung like the wires at the neck of an electric guitar. Loosen the hands. Show the caring by loosening the hands.

520 Bridge Song

Don't drive right up on my ass, please.
Where are you going to go?
We're on a two-lane bridge
and I'm driving as fast
as the cars around me.
There's nothing to do
but watch the moon,
(full cratered moon -
band of trees and houses
bank of smudgy clouds
giant pearl hanging over Bellevue
in a rusty rose sky)

and KING FM is playing piano
I think it's Bach.
Can't tell if I've heard this piece before
but the spaces in the melody
are whispering his name.

So breath, Mr.
We'll be across in a minute,
lanes will open up,
and you can go chase someone else.