Prick of the Spindle: Poetry: Medina: Catatonia: A Credo

Catatonia : a credo
By Derrick Medina

I know the balance of living, carrying a full glass
across a room, acquainting axis with gravity,
containing what is collected.

Atoms whirr within everything;
every body unites in movement—

skeletal bodies, celestial bodies.
Lungs dilate as light entropies.

We embalm bodies for monuments.
We deny decomposition.

Erosion loosens homes, tombstones.

We keep faith in structures when clouds
blanket codes. Rain hushes murmurings.

Lightning reticulates roots.

‡

Houses shake.
Houses settle.

The sounds houses make before sleep.

I desire language before speech,
to reform to vibrations,

guttural noises,

to feel laughter crease my mouth,

to honor sound the way water
fulfills its vessel.

We have never known stillness.

Derrick Medina will be one of the final tenants of his apartment building before it is razed for office space development, which must be a metaphor for something. As a child, he would often pretend to prick his finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die in his mom's lap. He blogs at derrickmedina.com.