Poem for Friday and Renton Beach Park

A Blind Spot, Awash
By Tobi Kassim

And if I give up on consequences
is that despair
or passion? I can’t protect
myself from either. The lantern swinging
bearing down, pressing the dark
to a sliver
of shade at the edges of my field
of vision. My body alight in
the seat of this question and indecisive—
if to be moved through,
                         de-throated,
the groove in the thoroughfare.

I felt reduced waking up

crumpled by the water, an amniotic curve
along the shore. My only shape
was having been carried,
left at rest. And everything
I thought I could lose—
when I followed the rushes back, resurfaced.

Wings tucked just so or grasses threaded
gently from ear to ear, rewiring their small
skulls. I understood the first mercy
             of diving is blindness, those parachutes blooming
                        the drag that yanked me back
to my body, almost touching my lungs.

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Thursday involved a bunch of freecycling, a meeting with someone who does packing-moving-shipping-storage, some writing, some laundry, and supervising cats who were trying to supervise chipmunks and doves on the deck. We had veggie ham and cheese pie for dinner after a walk around the neighborhood. 

We watched tonight's Ghosts (stop bullying Hetty over that asshole) and last night's The Masked Singer (the DC Superheroes episode with Michael Bolton) around chatting with my fan friends. Here are some pictures of Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park in Renton, which has a Bird Island and a view of the Boeing factory: