It's 2:45 am and hunger tosses in his sleep
In my stomach
His temporary home
He comes and goes like an old friend
And we catch up and he asks me
If I've been ok
And have I missed him
But he is not really an old friend
That's wrong
More like family
A ancestor who's soul flows in my blood
Someone you would not ask into your life -
And I say I've been all right
On the fronts he's concerned about
But he is not concerned with everything
The much more is a blue gray moral fog
And I truly am a spirit hidden
My transparent skin mingled
With the heavy November moisture in the air
But I do not feel transparent anymore
I feel the full weight of myself
Like a bundled burden
Hanging onto warm broad shoulders
Shoulders belonging to a man
So familiar and yet distant because
Time and closeness make a beloved
Step baby steps into oblivion
And I reach
Hunger stretching into my fingertips
Guiding me back to emptiness
And that's how I go on
Years after my recovery.