Ode to the Uncertain

by Myronn Hardy

I’m afraid of your feet    stockings    shoes.
The dying begonia near the window
is overwatered.    When I offer

glasses of water    you drink
as if it is the first time    the first
blue not sky but life.    Yellow

ginkgo leaves scatter in our street.
I’m in the storm.  The leaves slap
my face as if to say    reality    live here.

Clifford Brown’s trumpet
loud in my ears yet I still hear
bombs     the sudden dead.

My mind is wild with
you     always wild despite
my calm     what you believe

you see. Explain belief
to a nonbeliever in this
wild-wide world.