How We're Moved


He sings with his hands in his hair,
pop lyrics, blue steel toed boots keeping rhythm
on the floor, on the back of our seat, his fingers
drumming along the window ledge.
It’s bright outside and he wears silver
studio headphones to block outside noise,
but we hear him perfectly:
an off pitch nobody can stop us now
we’re all made of stars -- a running stitch
through conversation,
this fabric of frayed voices
rustling through speakers. It suggests
we connect to the red line at Fullerton,
to banks made of glass, bungalows so famous
only tourists walk through them.
The man sitting next to me whispers
loudly on his cell phone. He scratches dirt
from his tie, notes the possibilities
inherent in corporate architecture.
But what becomes of home
when crumbs cease scattering
over kitchen floors, when sinks are empty
of last night's dishes
and people no longer have keys
to misplace? My breath spreads across the window
and I trace my fingers through it,
doodling a spiral sun, the outline of my palm,
my name in cursive over a small balcony
moving miles away.

-Heather Salus (Boxcar Poetry Review)

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