A Walk

By Katherine Hodge

For my son

I went for a walk

Stuck in my time signature—

8/8, agitato, F# sharp major—

each sole flaying cement, cars at war with lights, straining my tether to you.

It was a loop, you see

Five bar lines

Every Good Bitch Deserves to Fail

It was a loop. Of course I brought along voices in my ears,

“Every Good Brain Deserves to Flail”

-The controversial podcast

I went for a walk.

A lake (such a sparkling little trash heap)--a long stretch of endless measures.

Then an ocean

Oh, an ocean

A staff

A coast of sand and sonorous succulents:

A double bar line,

A wet loop,

Now that would be a walk, baby. Could I stop here?

There was a low watery chorus when I finally took off the headphones,

Two heads grinning in the surf, they sort of look like you

(But don’t imagine my feet had stopped keeping time)

A double bar line.

A roaring wave--I was walking toward a double bar line,

birthdays upon birthdays upon the other kind

𝄐

My feet slap and

I turn around, my time signature breaking down

into a 3/2, modulated, flat

The chant: What sounds after a double bar line?

(Not this podcast, not that horn)--

Now the crescendo, please, m’aam:

I went for a walk. It was a loop

What sounds after a double bar line?

This breath, this 7 a.m. sky?

I went for a walk. Five stairs, the perfect fifth and a view: We are a loop, too, my love.

I am a loop you won’t untangle.

What will I sound after my double bar line, son?

My beat, the ring of my melody, the

chord I hum: the howl, the first blue eyes of your birth, the feel of your skin in my arms when we swam?

So slippery, the blood and sand of loving you.

I pluck the note again as I walk into it, back to you, always back into you

||: I went for a walk :||