my last four days have been spent away
in a lightless pit at the bottom of my mind.
but the time spent there is not what is important,
as I could not hear what happened above me
and likewise, they did not hear what happened
to me, alone in the cold floor of that depth.
it is now, as I emerge shaken but fresh eyed,
that I notice how the world seems to be off
in a way words have no business describing.
to be sure, I seem to have missed something
and from the faces of those I talk with now,
I can see that they are missing something
as well, but I’m not sure if they know it.

she brings me pancakes and lights me a cigarette
my ***** are cement and icicles form on my toes

she opens the curtain to a dying dove on the balcony
the banks are closed and the stock market has crashed

the periscope lens, so lucidly balanced, has fallen
irreparably into the crypt of a dream

i take a bite of an apple and stare into the mid-morning sun
after bagging the bird, she drapes herself across my chest

she is worshiped like a cradle, or a gravestone in a thunder storm
in her ecstasies, a prism, a poem fits like a glove

as the sunlight warms her ******* she heaves remnants
of last night's whiskey into my adam's apple and it burns me

the words she struck me with still sting in my ears
her fingerprints remain on my back and my bathroom mirror

because you were alone more often than not, I thought you a church.  I attended you with others and they were to report back to me only if you looked up, away, from your book.  you did not.  these others were men and women whose children have found me.  I make it up as I go along.  my records are unreadable.