socks

i felt you rise
in the middle of the night
shaking me awake as you lifted from the bed, i heard you walk down the hall, you were wearing socks, i heard them talking to the carpet, wool whispering to wool, i heard the light switch click in the kitchen and the ceiling fan start to whirl, i wondered what was keeping you up

perhaps you were getting some water, perhaps you were going thru the bills again, drawing numbers on the backs of torn envelopes with a pen running out of ink 

perhaps you were thinking of windmills in wyoming, not the old fashion kind which you like, but the modern ones that make electricity, which you also like, tall sleek towers with long sleek blades, and all the wind of wyoming spinning them, pushing electrons down long black wires, thru windswept prairies, along oddly number highways, across state lines and into your kitchen ceiling fan, to make, of all things, wind

circuit complete

or maybe you were thinking of your mother, who passed last month, your heart still broken, thinking how she used to talk on the phone with both her voice and her hands, as if someone on the other end could see her hands explaining things, same as you do, circuit complete

the same way i shave my father’s face every morning in the mirror, circuit complete

and then i heard you walk back down the hall, dragging your sleepy feet, i heard the static in your footsteps, circuit complete, folding your shape back into my shape, circuit complete  

outside, the darkness was doing its darkness, crows were dreaming their crow-dreams, trees were speaking the language of leaves, you were wearing socks, i was wearing socks, and all the sheep asleep on the rolling green fields of new zealand
were making socks

posted for d’verse

28 thoughts on “socks”

  1. I was going to say which lines I liked, and all that happy hopscotch, but I’ll just say this:

    Your poem made me break down and cry. It’s so beautiful and everyday and

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  6. You are so good at doing this, getting everyday life down as it is, and as we need to see it , charged with meanings, connected, and connecting, but which because of our fragmented little monkey minds that are busy chewing on the bills and our new haircut, we so often don’t. The last lines here are such a comfort, so full of heart, and they wrap the poem up and make it speak with its full voice. Just excellent writing, phillip. Thank you for putting it out there for my tired old eyes to get some beauty this morning.

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  7. I love LOVE L O V E this, Phillip. The night walk so beautifully drawn for us, the idle thoughts considered, and the returning to closeness. A time capsule of ordinary life,!

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  10. A stunningly beautiful write, Phillip. I love all the thoughtful details and how each one opened up to encompass a whole cascade of others. The journey of the wind from Wyoming and back again, the whisper of socks, the mother who talks on the phone with her voice and her hands…everything speaking its own language. Utterly beautiful, I loved reading this ❤

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  13. I read this as being about you talking to yourself, a part of you—sort of like you were watching and listening to yourself at a distance, feeling a little out-of-body, but then coming back together in the end.

    It’s gorgeous and sigh-worthy on all levels.

    Favorites:
    “talking to the carpet, wool whispering to wool”
    “not the old fashion kind which you like, but the modern ones that make electricity, which you also like”
    “all the wind of wyoming spinning them, pushing electrons down long black wires, thru windswept prairies”
    “dragging your sleepy feet”
    “folding your shape back into my shape”
    “outside, the darkness was doing its darkness”
    and that awesome ending, “you were wearing socks, i was wearing socks, and all the sheep asleep on the rolling green fields of new zealand
    were making socks”

    Your repeated phrase, increasing in frequency as the poem progresses, is very effective at gluing the story together.

    Liked by 2 people

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