Monkey Mind

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I’m saluting the sun.
I’m realigning the bodies
of the room, straightening arms
and legs of Warriors.

I tell them to focus on their breathing,
focus on their bodies,
but I’m distracted by her feet.
By the veins, taut below the skin,
sprouting out like branches.

Like trees in the forest in Michigan
where dad and I prepared the fish,
dad: showing the spread, the delicate separation
of two halves of fish by blade,
soft fleshy insides exposed,
and ten-year-old me: eager to help.

Like the train station maps in Japan,
all intersecting lines and a language I don’t understand,
a prerecorded voice announcing stops
in Japanese: Yakuin, Hirao.

Like cracked dirt in a yard in Wyoming.
Like a menorah. I make a religion of her veins.

Right now, she tucks her hands behind her back,
lets out a long breath, her lips
almost an O, and I’m inhaling quickly
to be a part of it.