The Poem: When No One is Around

When no one is around,

I am obstinate as a stone

sitting in my own way.

I am an ascetic

lighting candles,

sitting in silence, hungry.

I am a 90 year old woman

washing Ziploc bags

squatting in the shade

and making too much rice.

I am an underpaid sherpa

Lugging others’ mistakes up a hill 

(look ma, no hands).

When no one is around, 

I am beautiful like fire

spewing out sparks, turning the world

to smoke.

I am a prima ballerina

all limbs, full of grace, 

lifted by the air

(Sometimes, I am the air itself)

I am the sea at 6 am, 

shining and silver and still as a mirror

I am midnight; a charcoal moon,

the apex of night

I am a bridge, swallowed in fog 

petitioning for my own trust

When no one is around

I am all of the music in the world

an unrepeatable, magnificent cacophony 

played at the highest volume

shaking the walls

until they fall.