– i –

the way home was exhaustive.
asphalt is an acquired taste… 
the perambulant rolls under you
and gathers in your spirit
before it wastes away like 
over-ripened fruit, as a pumpkin,
perhaps, on a front stoop
two wintery weeks into november.

the more the distance,
the stronger my lonely.

i missed home, but got use to it
(or got use to the use-to-it lie).

could never grow accustomed
to the cold. i am chilled,
even in the sun; and the ghost
of hillside greenery leaves me numb
until i hate the horizon
~ all of its directions mock me.

a gray sky replies: home,
is not this way; turnaround
(i am always spinning!)

and if mornings
are a looking glass
into the world,
then these are already
a rerun. and if the world
burns on a dime, then know
that i have a pocket full.

– ii –

it’s better
that you have found me now
so that you might befriend
my bitter, because i can
no longer pacify winter,
passing myself off as dawn.