Honor Guard
for Taegre
You teach us
You teach us new
meanings to
breathing new
meanings
to speed new meanings to
98.6
degrees to keeping it
to
98.6 degrees you teach us the sum
of
the distance in hours
from being discovered to shouldering this
moment like
a soldier-trained-honor
guard you
teach us hup-step-hup-step hup-lift-hup
but
silently a kind
of
synchronized time the polish of it
you teach
us the brass the grain the flat pall falling
precisely
at the sitting-down-eye’s line
of
sight a line so true if it were music it would move
a
step a step a step a step
at
a time
the
body
your
body
your
body paused
in
its own bone-hold
to
begin
on your own after so much time has
flown to
- inhale
hold
exhale
to come back
home
