the unmade bed

You hang around one place long enough, you ought to see something new. So I train my eyes on the shadows on the ceiling, on the wavering of the light. So I watch the corners gathering ends and grime. I keep an eye open when I can. There is no telling all the things I missed. There is no counting all the ways I am wrong.

I tell myself stories. I sing breathless tunes. The hours just drawl on by. I am all wander, I am all wait. It is the patience of capacious atoms. This verve so sweet and true it can only be vinyl. There is that sense of nearly remembering the stories behind the constellations. That moment where star and myth part ways, so awake and weary. That instant when the rain begins.

I arrived just when all the words were waiting. I awoke awash in this rising tide. That early morning with the house still sleeping. The snoring dogs and the creaking floor. This name I found to the name you gave me. The burden of prayer and the talking television, voices pulled and pressed. This poverty of wanting nothing. The dim room, the unmade bed.