5 Years
.
After telling myself I wasn’t sad,
and eating four spoonfuls of almond butter,
I called my mom.
.
If I am this predictable,
I think, the future should not hover so, breathing
hot anxious into my ear.
.
She told me, she and my
father hope one day I will live close. My friends
tell me they are writing
.
out their next five years
for an assignment. We ask this all the time, open
our mouths for the answers
.
we can swallow without
chewing. I asked him to come with me
to my home time zone
.
and he asked, in his way,
if it was where I would be. What is it
about five years
.
that feels like security?
That word, “settle”, like a closed door,
as if even change had
.
an expiration date.
Listen: the only settling I’ve known has been
upon fluttering, rootless things,
.
a voice on the mic,
on the phone, questions we agree not
to answer till “later”,
.