bird in hand

Without so much as a word the world turns the dew to ice, frost on the fields, clouds smeared across the sky. The stir of matter slows, only the earth and birds to witness the breath as it turns to steam, plumes of proof that the husk still lives. A squirrel rules the lines and the high branches, barely acknowledging the dervish dogs as they tear apart the shed. Just another rat to the dogs, they await the opportunity to dispatch it. The cold is catching, stiffing each substance, filling the joints with grit and ache. Wave after wave, each moment slips away. Hour by hour, there is nothing left that counts.

The night met me with contempt, and daylight has never loved me. Sunlight is not my friend. I hunch over the sickness of this spelling it out, sharps in my chest and shoulders, dull ones emanating from my legs and foot. The healing isn’t going well, having gone from doing little to doing nothing at all. The body all pops and perils, reporting calamities at every shift and turn. The mind all the signals at the switching station, the spirit literally a condition of respiration. Last night I saw the moon and it meant all of nothing. A turn of familiar words, a rock as dead as any drooled over diamond or the stone stuck in your shoe. Something to stagger your step a little. Someplace to pin your shiny star.

Black coffee and the daily burdens. Stuck records and the skip to my lou, dead eyed dregs and the endless impositions. ‘Tis the season of thoughts and prayers, winged monkeys and pearl laden gates. All the dumbest, most evil shit we carry as a species. These digressions into special circumstances, the lies we are urged to believe. Had I a quicker path I would settle the bet right now, against the wall of this crumbling house, the taste of metal and oil then the big spice note. One of these days, POW! right in the kisser. All we get is just this once, and I can’t salvage a bit of it. All my lovers turned to strangers, all my chances played out wrong. Just the birds and the squirrels and buckets of piss. This fading fury, this broken word. Another day that can’t be unseen.