WALKING A CIRCLE

WALKING A CIRCLE
 susan ambrosino

If you walk three miles a day,
one thousand ninety-five miles a year,
in just about three years you've walked from the

Jersey Shore to California,
left one sandy soil, one ocean, one sharp state,
for another balmier, palm tree-lined one,

but instead

you do your walking around the same circular path every day,
seeming to go nowhere, seeming to leave nothing behind,
crossing no state lines, no new scenery,
no nights under starry skies out  in the open air roaming,
moving only forward toward returning...

The miles of kitchen countertop you've wiped down over the years

can circumnavigate the globe,

traveling out your kitchen window,

across your backyard,

through your neighbor's house,

past potato fields in Iowa and snowy cliffs in Colorado,

surprising surfers on a California beach,

forming a bridge across the Pacific Ocean,

entering Asia somewhere around

Vietnam's rice paddies,

reaching India on a sultry, sticky,

glow-in-the-dark night,

passing Iraq's cradle of civilization,

forming another bridge to cross the Mediterranean Sea,

only to bump hard into Spain's eastern shore,

digging into the wet sand….

Well, maybe that's as far as it goes,

but then, you're not dead yet....

You still are that woman in the early morning light
who straightened herself tall in your garden

with an apron full of plump ripe tomatoes,

squash at your feet,

an apple tree over your head,

two children asleep in small rooms of your house....