Kathleen Kirk
Metaphysics
This morning, the sound of one boy
shooting baskets on his driveway
turns into a crew of roofers tearing off
the shingles and tar paper down to the clean wood.
When I’m not looking, it’s syncopated drums.
When I look again, the men are rolling out
shiny silver insulation paper
and placing black rubber mats at the edges,
by the gutters, so the ice can’t creep up & under,
using hammers and air hammers
and the sound connects to their arm movements,
the angle of their elbows, shoulders.
My perceptions rearrange to align with the facts
of roofing. Still, I remember the early boy,
up with the sun. You heard him, too,
until you learned otherwise.
They say every possibility exists
somewhere, rolling itself out like shiny paper
on the roof of the space-time continuum.
It’s physics, they say.
I don’t quite believe them, but I’m open
to their proofs and demonstrations
if they are open to mine.
It’s like someone telling me the night sky
is actually empty during the dark of the moon
when I know the moon is quietly there,
unseen in this phase,
doing its moony business as usual.
