RED ROOTS

In session, I've spoken of this clenching. Ritu 

is the professional, reminds me to feel my own

body, as if I've become static on a tv screen,

imperceptible incisions of energy. "You keep

making fists when you speak of your fears,"

she says, which I hadn't noticed. I pay her to 

notice what I cannot. We speak but I am really 

outside, gripped by the cardinal on the telephone

wire, he comes in and out of this snow globe

of ours, dear Chicago. Some god holds this globe,

turns it over, makes giddy the gray, sends the bird

named Dorian away. "Where do you feel this 

in your body?" I close my eyes, criss-crossed, 

I reply, the base of my spine. My tears are hot, 

my knuckles are white. Red spills through,

and when she asks what color the feeling is, 

my certainty surprises me into wonder.