Take Care by Oliver Baez Bendorf

Take Care
Oliver Baez Bendorf

Sometimes I mistake the sound of my voice

for a rubber tire on the shoulder of the road.

I mistake my shoulder for an angle formed

by two lines coming together in geometry.

I mistake geometry for the way mothers

are the holy holy holiest of holes in the heart

and I mistake holy for a dried-up plant

rolled into the pages of someone else’s vision.

I am just as full of shit as everyone, incl. you.

And I mistake my fullness for abeyance,

mistake suspension for an early spring

rabbit hiding frozen in the road — I am

not the spring rabbit, I know, but it’s easy

to mistake my ears for tambourines; I am

good at them without expending any effort.

Once I mistook the tart infatuation of a

kumquat for another seedless calamity.

I mistake seeds for nothing all the time.

I mistake time for space, space for freedom,

sparkles in the alley for a sign that our

universe is sentient after all, and loving,

and will take care of those of us who pray

however mistakenly, not on our knees

exactly, but with our hands clasped

that we may be mistaken for believers.

I mistake my hands for belief all the time.

I keep waking up expecting them to be

someone else’s, but so far they’re only

mine, and when I mistake distance for

absence I tend to go astray. Like when

I can’t tell if someone is walking away

from me or toward me until it’s too late

in either direction. I wonder whether coroners

mistake knees for elbows the way my love

loses track of left and right. There are times,

or should I say spaces, in which I mistake

fire for work gloves, which is almost always

a mistake and vice versa. I want a compass.

I need deliverance. Good god, take me,

mistake me back to the soft shoulder

which I mistake so often for the road itself.