Somewhere Else

No one really wants the days
To run in place, the same rungs
Of light climbed every morning

And descended every night.
A tree can be nonlinear,
A fungus, ocean species,

But ancestry that includes
Worms committed you to length,
To living from front to back,

From entrances to exits
In a line, however looped,
Curled, kinked, and twisted. You seek,

And that’s a linear lifestyle
For anything like a worm.
You can spin in circles some.

You can curl around a sphere,
But you’ll feel the need to stretch.
You’re shaped for going somewhere.

It’s the rare person who can
Sit on a porch, in a cell,
Letting everything revolve

Without wanting to get up
And wander off down a road,
As if that could lead somewhere.