(a partial list)
I.
I am on a plane and I can see the curvature of the Earth, the whole planet bending away at the edges, and I feel it in my sternum like a bell that’s been struck and left ringing, and I press my knees against the tray table and my forehead against the glass and I don’t look away, I am just a man on a plane in 14A and the whole planet is doing something to me and I let it.
II.
And then I am walking to the corner store and two insects are having sex on the sidewalk. I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and let it happen. Two insects having sex. I am not embarrassed. No, I am cheering them on. The curve of the entire earth and two insects having sex on concrete and both of them hit the same bell and the bell rings and rings and I stand there being rung.
III.
And then I am biking through a storm to see someone. Soaked through, shoes full of water, cars passing me with their windows up and their dry faces, watching a man be earnest in the rain, and they don’t look away.
IV.
And then I am driving at night in the county, warm summer night, windows down, bass all the way up. My teeth are vibrating, the whole car a bell and the bass striking it as I go 70 on a straightaway and the fields go past. I pass a cow standing near the fence and I slow down to look at it. The cow watches me approach. I pull over and look at the cow for a while. I turn the bass down. I turn it back up. I keep driving.
V.
And then I am rowing us back to shore from a sailboat, drunk, late, and every time I drag the oars through the water the bioluminescence glows, blue-green light blooming up where I disturb it, and I stop rowing. I lean over the side to touch it and almost tip the boat and we are laughing, we are laughing a lot, and I put the oars back in again and it glows. The fog is fogging. Somewhere out in it a ferry sounds its horn and I feel it in my sternum and we are still laughing a little, and I put the oars back in the water and the water glows and the horn fades and I keep rowing.
VI.
And then I am a child again in the back of the car after a dinner party, and my parents are having some adult conversation up front, and I am pretending to be asleep, I have been pretending since we left, and my father carries me in from the car, cold air then warm air then bed, just darkness and motion, and I kept my eyes closed through all of it because I knew if I opened them it would be over, it would just be bedtime, but with my eyes closed it was something else, something I couldn’t name then and can’t name now.
VII.
I am on a plane and I can see the curvature of the Earth and then I can’t, we are descending, the curve flattening back out, the whole planet reassembling itself, highways, parking lots, the tops of houses, and then the runway, and then the terminal, and then the car, and then the highway, and then my street, and then my driveway, and then my door, and then I take off my pants and I sit down. The whole planet and then my pants on the floor, the bell still ringing.