I know a man who crawled across
the side of a building and hung
by his hands. I know a man
who bit into a light bulb.
He had to hold still while
they picked the fine shards
from his tongue. I think of it now
when I read the word filament.
The word incandescent.
I wasn’t there. Yet think of it
so often that I was—I was there.
I took the pains inside my ears.
I heard the sound of glass.
I was there at the precipice,
and I heard the moss grow
for ten million years.