Last night the specter that stands in the dim light
by the loose fence post
woke me,
and pointed East to Split Rock Lake.

My yellowed headlights peeled through the fog,
outlines of building frames collapsing until
that old shed next to boat launch
was the last thing standing.

There are no stars in the sky here.
There is no sky.
Only mossy air so thick it blurs every outline,
just enough
for dreams to fill in all the wrong details.

As my door opened, the dome light caught on
a bramble of soaked tulle floating
out under the moon,
framing your head the way boxer fractures build
mountain ranges in the backs of wind-dried hands.

But you were smiling in all that dark blue.
Staring through a teetering past
ruined present
and all the moments in between.

For a moment you looked like real hope.
Carved from sinew, metal, and glass.
A muted Whippoorwill warbling just before the horizon
goes wild and red.

Or the rushed ******* in a bathroom
because shaving your head
was the only thing that made sense anymore.

But you weren’t drowning as far as I could tell. At least not until your lungs remembered to breathe.

Some days are good.
Most are screamed into a strip-mall parking lot spilling over with Midwest rain.

But right now,
your feet are furrowed in cattails and algae
living the life left hanging for you
on the edge of a tall Southward wind.