Patience

I didn't have any today. It was a ball rolling across my floors, rock on cement, moving north, wobbling, picking up speed, heading for the wood stove. Nostrils flared. 75 push-ups. Eyes sucked into the monitor, phones poised to ring, already ringing along my pelvis, permanently in those bones, even at the top of a mountain those bones ring, and they talk to my ears, and I reach for a phone that has been left in the car. But I know somebody is calling. I know somebody wants me. I know the other side of town is blinking with red lights and someone in a truck, stuck, window down, smoking, has a phone on her ear and is waiting for me. I'm up there looking for the fiddler, trudging, lurching, gulping air, looking for the dance step, the shuffle and spin; but not yet, it's not there, forward I go leaning into the mountain, heading into a need, a filling mouth, a call to arms, a siren for the wealth left behind and the fires ahead, a stumble on the rocks. And she is not there, or maybe she's up on top, looking down at my galumphing figure moving side-to-side in the trees, splashing mud puddles, and maybe she thinks I'm wounded and need healing, but that's not something she does. She keeps moving and I follow, but I know that following will not get me there. And the phone keeps ringing.