Adam in the Hammock

Strung between these two trees,
I trust too much
that the trunks, the rope will hold,
that I will not be crushed 
by those limbs
heaving in the sudden wind.
 
The metal chime clangs insistently,
I try not to think of it as an alarm
unraveling the tapestry of squawks woven 
by the invisible birds.
I know I should be able to recognize their calls,
but I cannot.
 
There is only one cloud in the sky, 
looking a little sheepish on its own.
 A rash I never noticed before 
blooms across the back of my arm, 
speckling it with red bumps.
 
The rush, the brushing, the rustling, the breath,
and then the silence,
as if the wind is taking its own advice to hush.

The back of my neck prickles, I feel the eyes
of a thousand spiders rubbing their legs high above me
 
Sagging in my sling, I am not very high off the ground, 
ass nearly scraping the earth. Still, 
I fear the bump
that would come should I spill 
like a seed from this swinging bed, this hanging sack.

The rope is still clean and white, the knots sloppy 
but well-intentioned.
 Lizards snap each other up in single bites.
I never noticed them do that before.

I don't hear her chattering;
she must be sleeping it off somewhere.
I feel like there was something I was supposed to tell her
but my mind is a swampy quagmire, overrun 
with smothering creepers
and thick with squelchy muck. 

I cannot move from this spot,
no matter how badly I need to take a leak.
The wind rocks me as if in the crook
of a mother's soft but inescapable arm,
but I can't relax enough to sleep. 

And that single cloud has somehow expanded, 
or multiplied, and I strain my ears 
for the sound of his tires on the gravel
as the first drops patter the stones
and everything very slowly 
begins to fall.