Meandering Mind in Global Environment

Professor Day is drawing drainage

basins on the board, little rills

and gullies. The squiggles and flows

are cupped by black borders, other

land, and the whole thing like a lung

or tongue or lung-tongue, capillaries

kissing.

Now it’s a hot air balloon, the mouth

the basket I never stepped into,

the free ride I always missed

at the Derby breakfast: only up

then down, but still up, still floating

like petals in Albuquerque.

Now: an exclamation mark in bubble

lettering. Excitement is wrinkled but wide

at its noggin. Deep in its delta it makes

a good point. Close tight, it says. Contain

me. Keep me endorheic. 

On the other side of the board,

a set of teeth drawn to explain Q:

stream discharge. Discharge. I can’t

help feeling 14, panties wet with foreign

white goo from my coochie-coo. Then

thinking: the earth is premenstrual,

eventually floods. Hey Aunt Flo!

And this stream! So horny! It loves

the rub of erosion. The action is

hydraulic. There are cliffs, waterfalls.

Plunge into this pool with me, it says.

Let’s get lost in our own forces. 

Back on board one, there are two snakes

zagging in place of erased excitement.

Their bellies touch, merge, widen. Water swirls

and swirls. I swirl into you testing my pressure

points, grabbing just below my heart racing

hipbone. Me, in giggling fits. You, too seriously,

Have you ever wanted to say I love you?

There is too much swirl, chaos, struggle

for equilibrium: the water moves too quickly.

I cut off, I’m sorry, babe. I’m not cut out for this.

Streams’ grazing elbows separate: oxbow lakes.

Oxbow lakes. Alone. Still. Pushing. Oxbow lakes

won’t let themselves be loved. There is ringing,

ringing. The bell is ringing.