The Slippery Thing

I start digging at six, the day after
I start school. I don’t know what

it is about my shape or movement or essence but
something is or is not there when it should

be the opposite. At home, I stand in
front of the mirror with my shirt pulled

up, tracing the lines of my belly. I dig
in the garden after dinner, and my

parents are happy I am getting fresh
air and exercise. I keep digging throughout

growth spurts and moving
and new shoes and new hobbies.

I dig in high school, outside
at night like a thief, turning the key in

the door so quietly. I do not know
why I am different. Or I do but

none of my differences explain
my overall level of difference adequately.

I dig through first kiss and first sex
and first failed test and I am looking looking looking

for something that keeps evading. I become
slippery like the very thing I keep

failing to find and I never stay anywhere long
and no one knows me. It is a choice.

I repeat, and no one really listens,
it is a choice. I dig through graduation

and losing weight and gaining it
back and enrollment and new rooms

and more and better sex and new jobs
and pesto pasta and more graduation and more

enrollment and more graduation and each year I
look back at who I was at the start of the

previous one and everything is always
completely changed and I have not found the

slippery thing. Something inexpressible continues
to sit in my mouth, unmoving. But I have

ropey, strong arms and legs
and the muscles in my back and

stomach show through whenever I move
and I don’t even break a sweat carrying

all my groceries in. And if I crane my neck
enough I can look back and see the

trench I have dug up stretch behind
me across cities and countries and

decades and I can see the earth
is still soft and fresh in my wake and

worms are wriggling in it and I can
see I have made the soil behind me

very hospitable to life I can see
the seedlings and buds breaking through and

my one strong heart beats and beats and beats.