Beyond the Absence of Levels

by Jim Heston

Evan Eber reads a description
of a seafood platter on a menu
taped beside the door
of a restaurant just off Fifth Street
and suddenly he gleans
another layer
a poetic context
an almost erotic account of a red fish
that could have been penned
by the sun-tanned fisherman
who seduced her.

Not a block further
a once drowned newspaper
now draped over a gutter grate
branches out with no less than three
distinct metaphors
right before his very eyes.

After a few hours
using his grand new superpower--
the vision of the shaman--
Mr. Eber raises his foot
and takes a step up,
a step of faith,
seemingly into thin air.

For this micromanager
soon ascends
above the warehouses
full of unsold books
and ignored office space,
high enough the fall would hurt.

But he has no intention
of returning to a singular life
so he kicks off his dusty wing tips
pulls at the knot of his tie
and begins to sing
deep from the diaphragm
with such honesty
that the clouds crack open
and the water drops like dollops,
washing the ordinary down storm drains,
underground, out to sea,
and finally sinking into the silt
many miles from the new skin
of a planet reborn.