Possessed by the Course

In the middle of the grocery aisle, a man holding hands with his two young daughters was being pulled in opposite directions. I waited to pass, enjoying the moment in familial recognition of all things parenthood. When the father noticed me he said, “ Oh, sorry, sir.” The playful summer storm passed by and I took a few minutes to determine how the mis-gendered apology made me feel.

Fat. Unwomanly. Not me.

An aisle or two later, the father tapped me on the shoulder to say that he could see I was not a man. He caught me out of the periphery of his eye and misspoke. With his girls at attention, he apologized in a lavish, heartfelt manner.

Lately, an awareness of an infinite loop. Birth, life, death, repeat. Elephant, Egyptian, Ghost, Housewife. A man ends them all.

Though it is the body I rail against, it is not skin that holds me inward. Or the miles arrowing into the horizon of sunrises.

As any highway can tell you, the undulating cadence beneath the tires takes one both away and towards home. Closer and further into being possessed by the course.

For is it not the essence of sameness beyond the skin and bones and motel rooms that will finish the traveling? Let us all simply nourish the softening gate that opens in recognition of God. Her warm beckoning eating the miles until there is nothing left to consume. No where left to go.

 
in this place
I am fugitive words
spilling the presence  
that will never be contained
in the breasts
or hips
or bones
of me