The Sky above Chairs

THE SKY ABOVE CHAIRS



The chair nuzzles against trees. It remains still, invisible to its predators. Looking is a contract between hunter and hunted. Also, hiding. Look at a chair. It looks back, waiting for what’s next. The desk chair. The chair of another. The chair at rest.



A forest of chairs, a silent choir, the inverse of trees yet becoming trees. Moist pools of thought or sense. Inside the chair, a red city, a briefcase, an underground of blood.



Once, a house where chairs were everything. In bed. The garage, the rec room. Small childhood chairs. In the attic. In the breakfast nook. Old man chair. New baby chair. The carpets were chairs. We ate chair. Remember when we were young? When did they come to our home, the forest the size of humans, not chairs? 



Once, in early spring, the chairs were in our yard. We spoke in whispers, as if before a house of cards. The chairs seemed telepathic, each thought shared between the group of chairs. They waited as one, then leapt the fence in a single thought, a flock of birds, their wings silent and invisible. 



In the ravine, leaves unfurl, branches complete their plans. Clouds hunt the moon as the moon hides then disappears. We know the chairs are moving, but see only dust motes illuminated in a beaming slash of forest light, the scuttle of leaves on the forest floor, a scurry like the word ‘chair’ whispered from nearby. Chairs, we say. Goodbye.