We spend our lives growing up

following shapes of curved territories

uniting opposites, becoming eternal.

If we are mocked, we become still.

Never running through puddles again

or owning up to diseases with dubious names

or speaking English with vernacular accents

We treat our dead better, than alive

as though the dark heavy rest of earth

has luminescence now

as though the strong heaven movement

now carries a threat.

We want people around us

The way we want clouds — distant.

Raining someplace else

bringing the heady scent of mud to us

not the cloying rivulets.

Proximity is lethal

distance, benign.

Words are weapons when spoken

simmering volcanoes when suppressed.

We strain to collect

atoms of goodness in our bellies.

Strain to embrace that which is ordinary;

afraid to become like the fisherman,

who looks for water in the sea.

Published in the May 2021 issue of the Punch Magazine.

https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/poetry/atom-in-a-language-ordinary-and-other-poems