Spring Blues

               After reading Sexton 

I smoked
With a mild hangover –   

Residues of last night’s laughter

My legs, unsteady
Hands, vacillating – two fingers
Firmly holding the cigarette butt


From its head, an innocuous flame flared
Like an extension of the sun 

Maybe my hands knew  

And held life from fleeting,

Deceived by smoke and lust for flying,
Their rigid grasp, like the strains
Of a determined survivor

The warmth does not console me
Spring is late to bud
Within me, a stale fear has chilled
My skin – burned it dry

I never notice ants in winter, but now
They crawl toward me, like weeping puppies
My feet have lost their danger, I must have lost
My strength, and now my head is low,
Like a drooping flower, bent as if pulled
By the ocean’s tide

The garden echoes the voices
Of strangers,
Like a ricochet of crickets
But my mouth is stuffed
With cotton balls,
The tongue, jammed
Like a swollen thumb 

...I cannot speak

From afar I saw a girl
As timid as a ladybug
Silent, like May rains

I used to know you, but I left
To follow the trail of time barefoot,
My bare back facing ashes
That never stopped burning

The past looks down
Upon my naked corpse
Its eyes, red-veined with panic

But although my head sags
Like candle wax, my gaze remains
Afloat, like the eyes of a sailor
That refuses to drown