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Description
i'm wandering through seattle again
in my mind, on the coast
rain and slate heaven, so you can't
even see the buildings touch the sky
or the water crying down the eyes
that have watched this redemption
turn its head to see hell catch up

tomorrow i'm lying in bed
staring at the ceiling and
the red blink of the smoke detector there
counting out the piecemeal death
of my life, in seven second punctuations
reminding me of all the histories
that i wasted in the same ways on
the same lazy afternoons on the grass
quantifying clouds, qualifying the worth
of every word that i'd thought or dreamed
the day before or the night after next

we see here that hard fact is lacking
i see there the blur at the edge
of what we will always choose to know
i see in the pattern on
my morning pastry, all the things
i have taken for granted and left
to die and winter in the arms of
what i lovingly mislabel as "my conscience"

maybe next week i'll visit france
or san francisco, biding my time with
hands stuffed deep in pockets
and startled cheeks bowed to
a wind that flays skin like a lie
a wind that spears bone like
the last gasping accusation
of a friend lying gutted in a ditch:
why weren't you there?

and your only answer
befriended by doleful slump of shoulder
will be a quiet sigh to no one of consequence
on a dead riverbank in late september:
i don't know

Description
i'm wandering through seattle again
in my mind, on the coast
rain and slate heaven, so you can't
even see the buildings touch the sky
or the water crying down the eyes
that have watched this redemption
turn its head to see hell catch up

tomorrow i'm lying in bed
staring at the ceiling and
the red blink of the smoke detector there
counting out the piecemeal death
of my life, in seven second punctuations
reminding me of all the histories
that i wasted in the same ways on
the same lazy afternoons on the grass
quantifying clouds, qualifying the worth
of every word that i'd thought or dreamed
the day before or the night after next

we see here that hard fact is lacking
i see there the blur at the edge
of what we will always choose to know
i see in the pattern on
my morning pastry, all the things
i have taken for granted and left
to die and winter in the arms of
what i lovingly mislabel as "my conscience"

maybe next week i'll visit france
or san francisco, biding my time with
hands stuffed deep in pockets
and startled cheeks bowed to
a wind that flays skin like a lie
a wind that spears bone like
the last gasping accusation
of a friend lying gutted in a ditch:
why weren't you there?

and your only answer
befriended by doleful slump of shoulder
will be a quiet sigh to no one of consequence
on a dead riverbank in late september:
i don't know