Spectacle

After the fever, after the hospital, I would sit outside my house, staring
at the grass.
I had a blanket over my legs as if they bore the brunt of
my illness.
I remember that there was nothing as vivid as grass, those sharp
razor leaves, the seared yellow and black of the stem.

During those long August afternoons, I sat, tracking movement and color,
afraid to breathe
to disrupt the paths of these separate motions.

I would watch the aphids,
the brown moths, the luridly splashed spider.
I was utterly attentive, utterly still.
Sometimes I sat watching the surface of water in my cup, watching
it tilt, drink itself into the ground.

I would try to make myself believe that I had given up the tangible, that I was
invisible, with less weight or depth than a shadow.
But I was, in my own quiet way, making
a spectacle of myself.

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