Like An Abandoned Bumper Car

I spun in circles
yesterday, my turns
hitting unexpected sides.

I was driving on Broadway
but needed to be somewhere
else, somewhere where

I knew the signs.
I was lost in my own
city, adrift in a search

for silver mounds, sea thrifts.
All day I had accomplished
what I hadn’t planned.

My list said wallpaper
and I flipped through
geometric grids to Art Deco

I am six. The Rockettes skip and tap,
skip and kick and I kick the rose velvet
seats with my patent leather toes and
I reach across the seashell light for more
jujube beads to eat.

On paper everything seems
simple,
words become objects:

shades, housepaints, celery, oranges, headphones

Lists do not list
meanderings, the time it takes
between celery and headphones,

the absences, the substitutions,
the spins and near misses,
the search for stones that skip