burn

The flesh is always burning, eyes worn red from seeing too much missed. Midnight and the sun is still weighing in, radiating from this riddled skin. Whether the meat or the bone, somehow the bite is off. Teeth out of order, every choice another hesitation, every thought another slip. Whether the touch or the taste, the senses lose their sense.

The hours curdle, so far from the clock. The eyes grow lively, so far from this distant light. Sunburnt and sullen, crowded by my usual retinue of smoke and mosquitoes, I watch whatever the sky will show. Stars dapple the ache of incomprehensible distance. So much space only time can tell the tale. So many stories I don't even try to hear, out along this narrow ledge of the Milky Way.

I could talk for hours, I could sleep for days. Heat and breath, the slow uncoiling of every savored plan. A train wails, dogs bark, traffic troubles the streets nearby. Each day lingers in my hands, chance and plot and utile objects to grope and ponder. Each hour ground to dust by the measuring. Every clock broken by the work it means. Beneath the ragged pine and the powerline stretches, it is all I can manage to hold on to this world and its endless turnings. Beneath all these stars and wires, it is all I can manage not to shine.