Getting up
and ready again
in the brittle
stillness of pre-dawn
when it's chilly
and the bluesliver
frost is lagging on the ground
making grass into straw
made of bitter glass
and clinging on
dark somnambulant cars
like vague imprints
of departed spirits—
like the ghastly nightmare details
you still remember for a minute—
like it always has
this time of year
since you were a kid
lost in that cornerless
suburban world
in which certainty
was a gilded prison—
you cried
and swore you didn't
want to go to school anymore
even though you knew it wouldn't
do any good.
The grownups
would always know best
how to subvert emotions
like distress—how to force
the right things.
The measured clocks
would go on striking
even in a darkness as still as
this morning's. Probably
it's a mercy
to remember
so little of the life you've
already lived.
