by Kevin Craft
Wind kicks a few cups down the alley.
Pocketful of stones, a greasy lot.
Morning chill in fleeting sunlight.

You’d rather stay under this blanket agreement.
Not any storm can house you off the cuff.
The troposphere brushes your cold turned cheek.

Wake up. Get the child to school.
Now you are alone in this story
of cornflakes and Tuesday frost.

If you smell gas leak, all the more reason.
If you can walk back your talking point
happier still. Confusion in the hypodermis.

Poverty of whiteness
or hostile witness —
you’ll need a hole to crawl into

soon enough. Who lingers
finds the daylight wary. Who wavers
stands for nothing still. Hyper

nation state of being always out of
reach for the sky. Though you thought
your silence golden.

Though you felt like running
until your feet grew wings. This very morning
a crooked heartbeat stalked you out the door.

 


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published originally in Seattle Review of Books