I don’t worry about you very much.
For most of the day I putter like
an old man around the house,
dropping my keys down air vents in
the floor while I absently let my
food grow cold.
You see, the mountains rooted
in my room keep me fairly fit. I
grip the stones with my bare toes as
if I were a shoeless monk, searching
for God’s face behind every boulder.
So I’ve really got no time for
concern over your health,
the state of your van,
or if that woman has sliced an incision into
the wall of your left ventricle again so you have to
find a towel to soak up the blood
trickling from your chest,
telling your concerned friends with their flat faces that
really, you’re Ok, you’re
fine you’re all right it’s
Ok don’t worry about it until your eyes look
down to the sky for sleep.
I don’t dither about it.
There are many squiggling bugs to sweep
out the door, dull people to talk to, a sun to
burn my skin.
But there are moments,
cold, slippery moments caught in the
inches between sleep and wakefulness that
tumble down the ***** towards me in a
white cloud
of vapor.
My eyes are filled with smoke,
the grass ignites into birthday candles,
and I awake with tears
painted down
my cheeks