The Next Day
I am alive at dawn I am alive because
I am quick I am alive cast in the bronze
light of a November sick I am alive
deep in the recesses of a dark ark I am
alive every time death forgets to breathe
I am alive for just a few real moments
I am alive gut and angle I am alive high
above the scrap heap I am alive if living is
the opposite of ease I am alive jowl
and grit I am alive knee to spleen I am
alive low in the animal hum I am alive
more like a wave than a particle I
am alive now that the infidels have been
rousted from the towers I am alive or
I am a symptom of aliveness others curate
to recognize the seed I am alive pacing
the temporary autonomous zone I am
alive quick against the hush I am alive red
livered and warm in the pulverized dreg I
am alive so that the dead might be nightly
sung I am alive the next day and thrum
through each braided strand of my sorrow
* * * * *
Really
It’s as difficult as remembering
not to breathe it’s become difficult
to metaphorically sketch the parameters
of pain it’s clearly difficult for a single person
to articulate it’s difficult in the sense that
it’s possible it’s difficult even when the least
obstruction has been removed it’s forming
difficult alliances it’s grown difficult
to separate the shadow from the forecast
it’s hardly difficult to see it’s in difficulty
that we trace the will’s eel-like glow it’s just
difficult it’s killingly difficult to breathe it’s less
difficult if you know that pain has
a terminus it’s more difficult if
you perceive the sun as a predator and not
a comfort I mean it’s not difficult it’s impossible
it’s only difficult in the sense that an alternative
occurs to you it’s placing difficult words
in the crowded mouth of hope it’s quite difficult
to imagine it’s really difficult to forget if you
become one of the few that manages to survive it