Pythagoras

I wish I worked
Like a calculator always suspended,
And never rearranging,
Because I should be happy here,
In this place of good and denial slowly slipping into an hanging cage
Above fields that contain nothing, I know because they told me.
A feather, floating, attractive.
A ripple, slow and still, or better-
The thunder and the wind, which break the bird’s wings.
Instead the punishment is the grass, yellow and gray and together, trodden again and again by different boots and the same species,
The unintelligible roar, rolling myself out like a boxcar, ironing over and over and
Spitting out every last confession, impression on the wet clay, hardening in that cold, dark, place,
You Know, don’t you.
Believed to be perfection but an actress the eleventh hour, every moment, every glance an actress,
This is just an uglier version of myself,
Peach-colored and fermenting,
And I am what you need but never what you wanted for anyone but the smallest You, the inner shell, the blue orb.