desolate days
now stand bruised
behind X's on the calendar.
It figures: only on the verge of this
next reincarnation
does all of your deep-
frozen hope start to crack.
In the next room, revelers
move strangely to boiler-plate music,
but right now, it's you
who feels clunky, underwater—
as if, somehow you've waded
too deep in a lake,
waiting for their searchlights,
flair guns, or sirens;
but nobody cries out
to warn of your mistake;
no person jumps
up and down on the shore;
no one, with arms waved, is
calling you back.
