Of course and fall.

The soles of my feet.
The rain this evening, big drops.

The rain is a symbol
for the capacity of even small things

to fall from the sky over and over.
Of course the past. Of course millennia

with nothing alive but rain,
with no rain. Of course Mars.

Of course the round red of the sky tonight:
what the skin would look like

to a watered bone beneath it.
Of course the rain

is a symbol, of course the sky
is an illuminated symbol.

The soles
of my feet, their ancient shape.

Of course I'm primate, biped,
two hands free for failure, for grasping

Of course my eyes,
their raindrop shape

how the optic nerves pull them back into the skull
the eyes and photons both, as if to stop them falling.

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In the place where the road pulls itself over the train tracks
like a diaphragm teasing lungs open

as the sun goes down over the train tracks
and they both leave the city,

a motorcycle makes a frantic heartbeat sound
which I interpret as the arrival of the beloved
to dispel my earnest confusions.

It leads me through the catechism
I learned when I was young:

'Are you good?'
'I don't know.'

'What do you want?'
'I don't know.'

'When you hear the motorcycle make its sound
and the sun goes down behind the train tracks
where the road lifts up over them, do you think
what a person thinks
about that?'
'I don't know.'

There is enough don't-know for clothes
and food and fuel. Enough to make light
and block it out, for sleeping and waking.
Enough for now and enough for later. How long?
Don't know, don't know.