rest in peace, shannon leigh

a brilliant woman. a brilliant poet.
September 15, 1987 - June 30, 2008

The bus, trundling. Screech chord composed to slowdown traffic and the open gnaw of pothole. This place growing vines around my wires. Eyes wider than I remember them, out the window with music budding up in my arms—the parts I forget about(the undersides, the orbit ‘round elbow, pores). Part of my brain knows I’m going to work, but not really—work can have my hours, my body, my 98 wpm and inside-voice but the rest I will hold close to myself and pretend I am traveling somewhere/anywhere. A place with buildings made of sound, foundations of foot tapping, doorways of some cinema.

And honey hark your panda might, swinging sword of piano hammers giddy—this world-watching, wondering what next of another morning. “Keep your hand, you probably need it..” Right when I get too tired and confusion seems to gasp the gears, something simple happens. The tough guy drinking coffee on a stoop in the Strip—he flings his thermos cup clean in such a certain-graced flair, a movement of poet//the morning light has him in the motion timeless. He gets up just to walk away. The woman on the bus leaning soft mouth into a hand reversed and we make eye contact, and we keep it and we smile. The little boy in the back has the entire section in stitches over his rendition of the handheld bus schedule, front to back. There are lions at this stop you see, and a sideways sandwich for the bridge. Oh really, they say, oh really. Yes really, the boy says back, a matter-of-fact, and the adults start rolling again.

I start the blocks of walking on ankles that feel they are breaking and say to myself: alright, little tough, lose the game face. The shield holds little shelter for you, actually. The plaster of your neutral existence, long-since crumbling. Dust the stuff away. Be the valleys and swings. Enjoy the pauses of getting there, of going. Yes sometimes the roaming is more about drifting. Yes the hands are a place to hold things. Only what you can carry, take with.

Like this darling, like this. Travel light.