Aubade for the Self
With a line from Jessica Hincapie
by Taylor Franson-Thiel
I’ve always been a cloudy city.
Buildings going up like obsessions.
I have been careful not to jump.
Rain kissing skyscraping windows,
call it a baptism of a million wicked
thunderclaps. I’ve been giving myself
storms. For what is a storm if not
an invocation, if not my skin
pitter-pattering at me go, slow,
slow, stop. Stop. Stop. Constant
damp, the penance I pay
for my muddy water body.
(For so long I thought
I was good, and then
for so long I fought
to actually be good,
and still nothing.)
