cancer
showed me
it's okay to

be angry

& feel angry
& give myself
time with anger

to work through it
or sit with it
or roll around in it pouting

until whatever next emotion
comes to meet me

on my feet

this ersatz calm

of an eve ended
too early to elide
my endeavors &
some easy sleep

so tits up it's time
to tangle with that
dread expanse of
demons between

this screen & my
dark ceiling or more

twixt today's untaxed
untested brain & a good
night's sleep again

assumption a
hebetate habit

& i wedge my words
in a wheech to fill
half-full mouths

too glaikit gibbous
to wager such waits
of my impatience

o new slew of snow
most unbeckoning blanket
thin, mean, & cold-toed

stoss side of sunrise
calculating snooze taps from
blankets disinterred

am i any-
thing other
than hands

which hold them
up to them
to chase them

-self across a
plain plot of page
on little letter feet

we are mostly
maneuvers

& these castoff
portions of your
cropped photos

a performance
in perifery
perhaps

only moments
scrawled
on margins

these imperfect
pieces left
after leaving

anemic as iron
exits a soul

bloodlag in
bloodloss
across
a body

bereft
of anything left
which won't
leave me
fatigued

how to summon
some courage
to can't-move
move on

it goes
the ghost
in me pales

to a white
as this skin
i am stuck in

& the bones
of these hours
slowmove creak
ship-hull timbers
on seas unsteady

as she goes she
goes jutty that cut
of her jib one white
flag settled in fog
grey blankets

so unnoticed propel
forward on a sum
of surrenders

& part ways with
walls of saltwater
at either side

hours left as last stones
placed in this long wall of days
distance year from year

another decade
shipped in so many
calendar boxes

a lost lot of lee hours
spent in/somniac sprawl
staring up at the ground

oh this imperative
season of again
never again & again

a bedsheet bridged an
intricate extrication
& two kinds of cold

heavy limb tangles
& his unburdened breath on
my trembling neck nape

bed wounds a body
proportionate to its years
lets go less & less

soft side of morning
sleep sits on my eyelid swirls
fingertip ethers

built brittle in bone-
spoken whispers of marrow
to some calcium

seventeen degrees
but these kicked blankets mean it's
still not cold enough

"Light breaks where no sun shines;

Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart

Push in their tides;

And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,

The things of light

File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones."

- Dylan Thomas

out of cash
i rarely carry
but bought extra

burgers at lunch
& drove around
searching for

someones
who looked
like they could
eat & make better

use of those
blankets in
the backseat
of my car

drawn thewy
in cut contours
from such strength
as requisite for a
load of letting go