The Fatigue

is newly familiar, but familiarity breeds
surrender, not contempt, for its powers
are overwhelmingly secretive, coming anew,
stealthy like evening fog, all encompassing,
departing when it chooses, only by choice,
fearing not day or brighter burn of sunlight,
or even the insistent rules
of the mathematics of a timepiece


it hides within the ordinary, the mundane,
the onerous lifting of the fork, the exhausting
chewing, chewing until sleep offers distraction,
but not necessarily relief, for the chores of
living, are an endless looping, and the fatigue

does not recognize the clock, the body’s rhythm,
only its own schedule, I proud man, am but its
vessel and vassal…