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On Rising

Eric Weinstein

this was the first morning

it was easy again.

perhaps finally, during the night,

the innumerable neutrinos

drifting up through the earth from the sun

reached critical mass, became enough

to lift me out of bed.

i silently thank the universe

for heliocentrism.

all day i imagine the shape

of rising:

a column of mercury,

a note tied to an orange balloon.

The Natural Progression

Eric Weinstein

vision flees first,

footfalls stumbling away, heavy

on the floorboards overhead.

i can only recall your shape

in deep dreaming

or photographs.

(i had forgotten

the freckle on the right side

of your lower lip.)

hearing goes next, your voice

limping through a field of static, the listening

as through a phonograph,

the needle damaging the recording

each time it is played back.

taste escapes through the windows:

tongue, lip balm, coffee, raspberry.

feeling hides in the attic

until chased out of the house with an axe.

(unbearable

the bare mattress, the empty air.)

scent stays the longest,

sitting up all night at the coffee table

leafing through magazines, shadowing

me through the streets each day, which is why

today i found your perfume in a crowd

and turned, searching the horizon

for the back of your head

sailing away from me, toward the winter sun.