World Upside Down

Despite the fact I can’t lay flat
            two fingers,

on my way home from work
            I walked on my hands

from my corner—
            over grass and elm shadow and across

the sidewalk’s light
            upheavals, half the way

to Sunbeam Grocery—fresh blood-chutes
            to the brain with each
 
stride of the palm,
            pair of inner blue pumps
 
pretty much off duty;
            spine, lats, and thyroid cartilage elongated fully.

This I do with the soles of my hands:
            cop a feel of the globe

in mega-dimension, how dogs sniff voles
            through fronds of wild rye.

With how much grandeur dandelions keep their minds afloat!
            Noble, with clover laced in

industrial bug juice, my dog Toby a swatch
            of roving cumulus. The whole schmeer,

by which I must now mean the full-on world,
            seems half again as much a meanness derby

as anything else. Therefore, let me lay
            these words in the church of your mouth.

From Human Directional (Etruscan Press, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Diane Raptosh. Used with the permission of the author.