If I was to locate 'I'

- After Rumi


If I was to locate 'I'
It would be entered between these eyes, lodged perhaps
in the nasal bones, or otherwise
in the cave of this mouth, rubbed back
Up into the stem of this brain
and further
Into the brain Proper, which crackles and pops
like electric breakfast cereal.

But sometimes I is wandering.
Today. Running by the canal. I shifts
out in blobby space and swings holding, bedazzled,
onto the water
which is entirely light.
The entire canal and the light
is now I's phantom limb,
and for a moment it headlocks North London.
Playful.

Later I is busy tweaking in the swollen thighs.

Over the cup of tea the face is warm and I floats there
And annoyed shoves at the steam
Demanding:
Why is I tied to this and that?
Is I in the flakes that drop off this skin?
Is I in the bumps of air that trundle from this mouth?
Whoever put this I here, will have to take it away again.

And then the infant, face tight as fist:
Her I must be in the lungs
And, sometimes, in each toe stretched
In every direction as far as it may go
I, I, I, mine, me.

The infant saying:
Stop making all those choices.
I have always been here, I know that
And anyway if someone brought me here
they are mine too.