A Walk

By Kit 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, mama:

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, this aching vibration of 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 :||