Free Ride by Aidan Johan
It is strange how you grab for the nearest object
when you sit with your eyes closed and hear sounds
that aren’t unfamiliar. Noise like wood scratching
wood. Maybe a group of construction workers
stacking pallets into oak towers. If you keep
your hands at your side and let a breath
flow in and out, walls disappear, spin, drop,
and assert again re-imagined until you are sitting
in a wobbly plastic seat, doodling a blue dinosaur
walking on pointed cursive: George Washington
was the first President, in a composition book as
construction workers are stacking pallets into oak towers.
by William Sean Devlin
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