There's a fire
in my chest.
It's burning in
water.
The steam
fogs my glasses.
As being on the verge
of breaking down
draws ever so closer.

Closer than a lover
closer than the
decaying yellow
from the vines of
a dead fern.
So much closer than
the smoke-stained paint
which coats the walls of my home
an off-white uselessness.

Carrying an anchor
so far
from the sea,
it bears a toll on me.
Half dead
hunched over
waiting for
a candle's light to
reach my
ever-growing darkness.

My body is half buried
in the dying Texas blue grass.
The worms
maggots
and circling birds
hungry to tear away
at the flesh of a dead poet.