FOR YOU
Adam Jordan
FOR YOU,
I checked the bush. I tried the sky, the crickets' legs, soccer fields, and apples' cores. I stoodunder thunderclouds, kitchen counters, catechism teachers inside superstores. I studiedCrusoe's isolation after Harold and the Purple Crayon. I drew the paths marshmallows meltthrough hot chocolate, the priest moves his arms in, venetian blinds rise up, and morninglights the staircase. I multiplied myself in mirrors, in thought, in prayer, my doubts by mybooks, like blue-jays by the bird-feeders. I took the long walk home without a coat, thetennis court oath with twins who moved away. I collected a deck of leaves and needles,recorded the chances of each commercial, laminated mustard seeds from neighbors'gardens. I studied age rings from my climbing trees and the planets' ellipses. I foundnothing as deep as the vacuum of space that pleases me best. My only conviction that lasts,I remember a picture taken by Voyager as it left our solar system, looking back, where theEarth appears faintly as a bluish-green period at the end of a paragraph.
Adam Jordan works with Autistic kids in rural Pennsylvania and is an atheist. He once thought he might become a priest.