Somewhere Other Than Florida

Even before I begin I should start over

Start with a horse, say, or a toothbrush

Something that takes up space on the earth

Something that would make a noise if you dropped

It on the floor

Or if it

Dropped by itself

It shouldn’t matter if it is alive or not

If it is a living thing

I have often mistaken a woman for an armoire

A dog for a pitchfork

A glass of beer for a butterfly

The cricket chirps through the night the same as

A lawn mower cuts grass

There is no real difference

Nor any reason they can’t trade jobs tomorrow

The cricket and the lawn mower are both ready

For the change, believe me

There is no proof it hasn’t all been a grand mistake

Ours to fix

I propose we reconsider all objects

The old woman on the train

Reading a magazine

A Japanese beetle crawling across the kitchen floor

An antique desk

On the sidewalk outside a laundromat

Try to remember something you have no business remembering

Something you’ve never tried to remember

The crème brûlée at that restaurant downtown

The turbulence on the flight to Florida when you were fourteen

How the passengers whooped and hollered like they were on

A roller coaster going fast, going too fast, going

Somewhere other than Florida.