Sometimes

I wonder about Dorothy’s socks, dangling on a clothesline below a 1939 sky before the wind blew and planted them somewhere in Oz.

I whistle to bluebirds along a path paved with yellow bricks,

startle at shoes buried under flying houses crashed next to a road that actually has nothing to do with Emerald Cities or you and me together

because I’ve thought about this before you know…with someone else under a different rainbow,

thought about conventional words like hello and goodbye and how people get stuck together in clauses and how easy it is for paper to rip ” I love you” into packing peanuts

shoved by flying monkeys into a burlap knapsack, dumped under that next step I’m about to take .

Just below the hem of my dress, there are stitches holding lace in place, quivering above a pair of red shoes

gasping, grasping for air, telling the folds of my skirt they’ve forgotten how to breathe

for a moment

swaying

inhaling

lifting

and then another moment

up,

over,

beyond …