Down the way, around the edge of the park, where you find kitestrings and beer cans and the plastic ends of swishers when you walk by
Me and my elbows, we walk by also, swinging all over, knocking a Mercedes (the alarm sounds)
***
Up and over the top, to where you can see the skyline blasted in space-age golds at the end of a day rainy enough to leave a lot of wet in the air
Me and my elbows, we lie down in the grass, they hold me up, they plunge a pattern into the ground that no tracker could make sense of
***
Far out, thirty miles away, where work is, me and my elbows fit ourselves through one push-door after another, pressing a buzz-camera-box button first, signing a sign in sheet, my badge swinging across my chest — or I tuck it into my shirt pocket
***
“Can you hear that?” I ask, and a small face says “No,” and I say “Let’s change the battery”, and we do, and I say “Show me how you know how to do it,” and they do, and I’m proud, and me and my elbows raise up my arms and wave hands in exaggerated celebration , to make the kid smile
***
In the bathtub, end of the week, spying an ant in the room — it’s summer now — me and my elbows go over what was said and not said, and sometimes a spasm hits that can’t be stopped, and I cry; I came with what I had, and I’ve been losing that and more since I arrived.
***
On a bright, cool morning, I knock my broad elbows down to the grocery. I know if I get there early enough, they’ve got the french bread that’s still warm through the paper, and soft. But I gotta go later if I want the bag of deli ends that’s just two dollars and I can stir it in a cream sauce and put it on rice for the next three days.
***
I write her, but my elbows intervene and hit a bunch of awful keys, and now I’m pushing back when she’s reasonable, or I’m bailing when she’s in, or I’m being placid when she’s fighting, or I’m all typos when she’s crisp, or she’s all typos and I’m mister correction.
***
I take my elbows down to the lake and stick them in the sand
The salmon sky is arced and I think of movies where people rocket out there and see the big darkness
And I still just don’t know, and can’t decide
If it is good to need people
