Like Two Negative Numbers Multiplied by Rain
Jane Hirshfield
Lie down, you are horizontal.
Stand up, you are
not.
I wanted my fate to be
human.
Like a perfume
that does not choose the
direction it travels,
that cannot be straight or
crooked, kept out or kept.
Yes, No,
Or
—a day, a life, slips through
them,
taking off the third skin,
taking off the
fourth.
And the logic of shoes becomes
at last simple,
an animal question,
scuffing.
Old shoes, old roads—
the questions keep being new
ones.
Like two negative numbers
multiplied by rain
into oranges and
olives.
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