When you emerge along whatever curve
the day provides, you find a place

you’ve managed before in another type of life,

your spine settling into a familiar,
vertical way of learning.

Some children don’t ever grow old,
though time

inside a silo

may pass the same as time
inside a paper sack.

Your hands aren’t tied,
were never tied, in fact,

though envisioning an expanse
before it appears
would be like anticipating a law

before its enforcement begins.
Like an autumnal sky

maintaining its own language,
its own form of alphabet,

resistant to the beauty of language,
you stumble through speech

in sleep, severing ties
with your mother, filling the space

between the bed and the fan with music.