Plumbing

Thoughts are like water
dripping through
a rusty pipe
after a bath
where you started to prune
because you couldn’t grab
the drippy drops of
luminous blue and
quantum theory
as they scramble away
from your brain.

One, and two,
three and four
the splashes
of neurology and
great metaphor
are separated from
the perfect tense
and the gray matter
that keeps them fresh
like sprinkles from the garden hose
making tulips grow.

When the pieces of
your lively mind
start to melt
and slip away
take a jar
that used to hold
movie stubs
from Superman; keep it close,
so you will have
a place to slosh
and reunite
the globules of
your mental strife
until the day
your brain
is the desert
just outside
of Bakersfield
and you’re trapped
in Tehachapi
without a bottle
of Arrowhead.