Sit outside, in the sun or the shade, with a notebook and listen.
Imaginary Landscape No. 1:
Siren and bird call—a warning, an announcement.
Plucking strings, a crash. I’m going offline. Doctor!
Stagger, fall. My heart is a deep ocean finder.
Imaginary Landscape No. 2:
I am now under the sea. Paint cans and sea shells.
Quiet now, blowfish. That Greek blue, in the afternoon.
Time to take a nap. Time to lead a parade.
Imaginary Landscape No. 3:
Coffee. Children in the kitchen, in the cupboards.
A whale song. The aliens have landed. Zeeep.
I will pot up plants in ground coffee beans
and water them with soy sauce.
Imaginary Landscape No. 4:
Walking into the radio. What did they listen to, in the beginning?
Searching channels for you, riding waves.
A clear signal, unclear. Piano and pop, politics.
A voice—whose? No news of you.
4’33’’:
That’s not an ocean, it’s the highway.
A squeak, irregular. The dishwasher is on.
The sound of my head turning left and right.
My thumb nail, my tooth.
My tides. Now I hear it, the sun,
and the ants marching across the yard.
I’m in the spot where I’ve always been.
There are the birds.
-Morgan English