In morning, he is divided and pried from the dream
Confronted by the next plaster gray View-Master day.
He lingers on his traditional half of the bed, teetering
Then ventures across the deafening, empty apartment
Where the dust accumulates like hourglass sand
Blanketing, bit by bit, over sedimentary plans
And archeological troves of screaming bones
In a vast, derelict desert of vestigial space
Towards a wardrobe of aborted echoes.
There he peruses his potential noms du jour
The coats of people he could have been
Knowing most of them no longer fit.
He settles on his most generic pronoun.
He performs his penance to the Tao:
He is each domino just as it tips
He is becalmed
He is amid still waters
He is a ship without wind
He is a captain without a ship
He is a bouy on the waves
He is one last minute
Treading water
(He is Legion, sleeping)
He is another last minute
He is the dragging current
He is the inflection of breath
He is the mooring of the moment
He is the stones in the coat pocket
He is the coveted numbness of now
In evening, he recoagulates and retires
Resigned to eat the tail that eats itself
Consummating one more centrifugal lap.
He remembers Sisyphus must be happy.
He watches through his dizzy window
A caterpillar spewing up a second womb.
It will be the last monarch butterfly
But he avoids the finality of the situation,
And in his mind, any ensuing hurricanes.
He buries himself in stale anticipation
Beneath slowly overflowing drawers
And trash bags piling up in hallways
Where he stores expiring fortune cookies
Whose pearly secrets he leaves uncracked
For want of a friendly sweet tooth
To bite the bullet for him
Because he can't today.
A breakup, a pandemic quarantine, and zen philosophy went into this.
Exploring the discomforts of the past, present, and future.
