All I have

For this world

Is the poetry I write

Half-sleeping at 3am.

While the cold early morning

Wind whips ’round my bones.

And I know upon waking

The morning’s swallowed the

Wet and beating part of my heart.

And the drumming of the day

Will rattle my failed attempts like

A bottle of beads, bound and shaking.

So, let’s wrap me up in whatever

My soul’s sloughed off today.

Let’s make love while another stanza

Is stolen by twilight howling,

Desperately curling like strewn ribbons

Into the velvet-lipped dark

Past the place where the gods bid my muse stay. And she stays.