it was 8:37 pm eastern
daylight savings time
when i felt the night descend on me
out on the stoop
listening to woodcocks in mating ritual

twilight was gone, instantly
the cold, sudden, enveloped me //

isn’t it strange,
when more than half-way to dawn past midnight
that another cold, even deeper, sets in
just before Sun’s rise

our solar Star, insists that we feel what it might be like
if it were never to rise again, on us

for some, tonight, it won’t.

in that hour, i pull the blankets up around my neck
while my feet search for the warm underside of the dog //

i awake with a memory of loss,
loss is my reliable companion in the deep chill of the early hours,

yet,

i am

alive, here, now, still //

why doesn’t the heart stop bleeding for
those who’ve gone on, ahead
whether they’ve left
— alive or dead?

is there enough love in the here and now?

isn’t there enough love in the now and here?

maybe, the answer is, no

maybe, only my answer is, no //

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i think
then i sink
reminded, Mercury’s in retrograde
and i vow to keep quiet, to become invisibly small for a while
i’ve made a rural, dream lemonade
from life’s city-grown lemons
i can drink it down, right quick,
like Alice
only, my Wonderland heart stays freakishly present & big

and, maybe

that’s why its so chronically
sick.

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