1
The morning sun
accentuates the prayer plant’s veins.

It’s already hot when I think of getting out of bed.

Down the hall the children’s voices are taut with hunger.

I remain in bed, facing the window,
staring into the distance at something I cannot see.

There are words for this
but pride has charred them
and what is left is nothing.

               -side show          meditation

               fist full of colored balloons
               night of sleepless dreams
               strands of light wire in the sky
               voices crush me
               knees to chin      eyes to wall
               far beyond the possibility of spin
               into the air where color was
               into the night of colorless sky
               nights under which
               I’ve spent years willingly

2
The children have left for school
and their absence is a thick wall
between us.

We move through the house
grateful for the broad shade of that wall,
avoiding each other,
avoiding everything.

                -vague history       meditation

                wind surged ceaselessly
                through fractured panes of glass
                I was marched between armed guards
                to a damp cell
                from which I would escape
                (this had become the new policy –
                corporate interns by day – at night
                underlings of a bloated transparency)
                disasters crowded with faceless figures
                crags brittle and slick
                and a child playing too close
                wind saturates the house
                and the sky has become too dark
                for stars or children

3
Vandals destroyed the tulips.
The sun has become the adversary,
sipping color from tulip petals.

The stems have scribbled
into the sidewalk
their plea for rescue.
They cannot come to grips
with the fact that their
sanctified beliefs are lies.

Then they notice the deep boot prints,
vaults across their implorations.

               -vague progression         meditation

               the house is emptied of wind
               all the elevators are stuck
               bluffs remain frail and greasy
               children play dangerously close
               the sky has become
               too dark for stars, or children, or walking.

4
We walk together.
The sun is sucking the life from the ash tree.

You tell me that I used to have what you need
but now I do not.

The forsythia attempts
to set the fence on fire,
a gesture to attempt to make me
feel more comfortable.

I tell you I do not know what you need.
Boats creek on the amplified morning air-
it is the sound of the aged.

You tell me what I have to give is nothing.
Children run by spilling over with laughter.
I tell you I’ve given you every bit
of the nothing I have.

A blind man sitting on a bench
is singing I be seeing you…

The sky too dark for walking
we walk together.