Rug

I see legs running in that rug, woven in
to a pattern and so now no longer legs
running, no longer the flesh
startled that it’s not
running, but rather stitched, woven, frozen
from motion in this rug.

And the only comfort
is the softness of the weave, the strands
of wool abutting each other in a kind of
companionship or even a union or a weird
kind of joy that goes along with the removal
of the obligation to move and the loss
of memory of why the legs were running
in the first place, and to where,
and what they were feeling: for example,

the joy or even bliss of an open field or meadow
of high grass gently scratching the calves
or just below the knee; or the fear
of something and its bully coming from behind;
or, more likely, a simple beckoning home
in the twilight, a running to supper as dusk
calls us in to eventually rest and join
the weave of night, no longer running,
the thread that holds our muscles taut
loosened when we fall so easily into the sleep
so much larger than ourselves, and when
we forget our bodies as our minds
run to dreams, where no exertion of the legs
will get us where we don’t know
we want to go, so loosed we are,

unbound from muscle and sinew, from
weft, warp, and weave, and having
forgotten the fabric
of our being, the larger design
we all walk upon,
and no fingers there, no hands
of God.

Published in The New Guard Review