Nicholas Molbert

Here Are Some Things You May Need to Know

For AHS

I wrote this on my back,

shoulders snug inside

what my vacuum considers High Carpet.

I wrote this while thinking

of anything else. Everything else.

In fact, there was not enough

to think about: and yet.

You should know this was inspired

by exponentially more interesting things

than this thing itself.

I stepped out of a shower,

half-washed, straight into

these words, then, still dripping,

abandoned them for the comfort

of a grocery list.

I busied myself.

I threw things on the ground

just to pick them up.

I got out of my pajamas,

concerned the poem knew

I meant business.

Everything and nothing

is worth knowing, depending.

I revised out the music;

the banging and strumming

that led to the calluses

that led to an inability to feel

which surely meant something in the first draft.

I revised over the plants leaning

toward any photosynthesizable light

in the week that wore clouds

like a stiff trucker hat

after a bad haircut.

You should know

the nature of the scrapes

that led to this trying.

The same dirt there then

is still under my fingernails now

which is not

a feel-good argument

about connectedness

as much as one step in the proof

of my loyalty to talisman.

I believe you should know

that discomfort lodged itself in my side

not unlike a running stitch which

I took to mean—what do you think?—

Take a break to spritz

the aloe seed that hasn’t breached the topsoil,

hasn’t found the right light to read.

I tend to tend for things

after it is clear they are through

with my tending. You should know that.

That is the most important thing to know.