Through Smoke

Walking through smoke like
a crazy dream like
Antietam,
like Custer's last stand,
like Nam and a million other
battles that have not
been mine.

What has been mine, the walk
through cemeteries from
fresh dirt to fresh dirt.
The walk through ICUs and
oxygen tents. The walk through
the fight to remain middle class.
The walk through a million
somethings I didn't ask for,
just like everyone else.

But this is not what I mean.

I can feel the field of war
in my chest, like some
foolish or mistaken foot soldier
taken by a virulent dream.
Confidence is like that. No,
victory is like that. There is
no such thing as safety after,
because you know the loss
in safety.

Walking through smoke,
like walking through the film
of envy, disappointment and
the inheritance of the meek.
The second, false skin
of deserving.

In the human life,
there is only smoke and
walking through smoke.

Word Sexy

Words with many
syllables, seductive
like erotica that
works on the various
compartments of the
brain, unlocking them
to each other. An incantation:
a word with more than
three beats.

Is my prerogative better
than your way? Is it
better to be luminescent
than bright? Yes, and
no. Affirmative and
negative. The music
wants what it wants.

But to call it more than that?
To need it
for more than that?
Roll them on your tongue
awhile, big sexy words,
and tell me it has nothing to do
with sound and heat.

Untitled

There are territories of
the back of my own hand
that I do not know well enough.
Could it be that age does not
deepen me but thin me out
like melted cubes of ice? With
territories should come the linear
paths but all I see
are circles, one outside
the other. What is it
to know the topography
of a ripple? A fantasy.

Second Sleep

Second sleep
you said, and when you said it
I thought of death
but that's not what you meant
when you said you
loved it. You meant that
second gasp of surrender before
standing up before the day.

I heard
that second kind
of sleep. A last
surrender. As if
only once we have that chance
at that sleep we will wake from.

I live as if
there are no
second sleeps in a day;
as if I were not wired
that way. Truth is
I am
very tired.