My Blank White Bumper Sticker

still on my car now I like leaving things
            the way they happen
           rain seeped through plastic  
                                    smeared the words blank

you need age to arrive
you cannot just create
            a diner in 2012
                        paint it shine to reflect the sun and everything else
                                    expect the street to believe it is
                                                                        sixty years old

detail
I feared lockjaw
            the randomness of things
a brush with rusty screw on the see-saw
fatal mouth peanut butter freeze up

detail
when I was eight my hair was straight
I turned thirteen
agitating hair looped
                                                up in my blind spot
                                    now tighter after tighter
                                                curl in motion tells
                        every woman at the Xerox store my state
                                                                        constantly searching for a pen

detail
I played on the Dodgers
red shirt t-ball
shortstop between
pinpoint positions of second
                                                            third make a note

detail
when I'm asked to be there at 7
I say 7
            think sehven, I'll arrive
                        I can't say my alarm clock is accurate
I've been compared to it
            measure last minutes before being where

                                                                        with elastic
                                                                                    stretch around
                        all the time you need to get there
                        (preferably with your hair combed)

detail
I wonder about
the electrical lineman I met
                        in the nursing home
how he felt supplying
energy all over Morgan County
                                                for its very first time
from those poles his
delicate fingers touched electricity

lights glowed from each house
he surveyed his work from one hundred feet up

detail
(the Nile River is 4,258 miles long)

                        who measures
                        the longest river in the world?

                        with what do they measure?

                        the length a shadow casts
                                                                        across the lawn divide
                                                                        or multiply by ___
                                                                                                            arrive at
                                                                                                            height of building

I want to hold the wrinkle of my hand
look back years and remember the shovel

I want to be the pole
run currents directly to the skillet

I want to be a hammer and pound
make noise see where my energy goes

A blacksmith has the horseshoes
to prove his work.