part 1

She tried to sleep but sleep laughed at her from a distance and turned away, the feeling of disdain palpable in the still hot air, August oppression an unwanted guest, tacitly refusing to leave. Her mind wouldn't stop--she begged, she cried, she soiled her pillow with wet and sweat, quickly warm and uncomfortable, her hair clinging to her face, her cheeks, her mouth, weak and defeated, casualties at the epicenter of woe.

Bone tired. Soul weary. She'll be tired again tomorrow, late for work, clothes unkempt, too rushed, anxious, vaguely worried, distracted by nothing worthy, chastized, humbled, shamed, repeat. Knots slowly twisted inside her or maybe just hunger or the ragged, vestigial pangs of heartbreak, she should be over him now, it was long ago, she couldn't even remember his face now but the lack of his weight and scent and impenetrable unhappiness so close

so close and he felt like a stranger, a ghost in the room, never there, or never there, and never looked her in the eye for those last few months, the unhurried kissing and longing glances and thoughtful deliberations now like his hands, cold, abrupt, unfeeling, the sex perfunctory and rough and lacking, apathy cozened into her bed ritually, without meaning or mercy and finally without. Hell is familiar, I grew up here, she thought. She thought, how old am I?

She sits now. She stares at the floor. Shadows and light swim above her in soundless grace, headlights making angels that do not sing or save, demons with no teeth. She thinks about the insects in her kitchen, maybe under her bed, doesn't want to think about what she'll see if she turns on a light. What is she doing here, this terrible neighborhood, where crime is a glance out the window? Why does she stay? When was moving a good idea, exciting, liberating and filled with promise? Hope seems mythic now, like the notion of money, love, food in the kitchen, security, friends who once called, a working car, sleeping in. She is walking now, floating in the heat, a damp moth in her cell, she doesn't remember getting up, maybe she's still asleep.

This room is a relic, a monument. Histories written into the walls, the floor, the ceiling, strange footsteps or shouting or fighting only waves crashing in, slowly wearing her away, carving despair onto her face. This room will forget me, she knows. This room will swallow me whole. For a moment, thin and stretched and painful, she hopes.

She begs.

swallow me whole. I am undone.

The slight breeze startles her, it feels like kindness, a gentle hand in the dark. Her eyes open. A cool benediction pours through the humid dead air and embraces her, it was only waiting for a sign, it tells her. It was here all along, like faith, you only had to wait and see. Hot tears on her face quickly chill and fall to the floor, impatient for the storm to come, the thundering she can already feel deep in her chest, dislodging something she thought rusted in place, corrosive and cancerous, and in its absence she hears a voice. It's like a long forgotten melody from childhood, impossible to be so young once, but there it is. She follows the wind, the night, the voice, to the window, she gazes up at the dreadful, lovely clouds, darker than dark, pulsating, promising. She weeps. She's somehow healed. Lightning turns the night around, shows her figures in the street, arguing. She wipes her eyes to see.

The bullets catch her in the chest and throat, she thinks it's thunder. The wetness is rain.

She feels sleepy. She'll fall asleep to the storm. Just like when she was a kid.

She'll count the lightning.

She

***

At last undone, I made my home
my wrecking yard of severed hopes
both ruined crag and pleasing cell
stone comforted and crushed to sleep, down,
down,
to the deep of the earth, at last dreamproof
and safe from any want (I told myself).
Coiled and wrathful, like a venomous thing
embittered with hunger, lamenting only
that I could not see,
I whispered prayers into the dark, while
pestilent angels, like ardent moths
crawled and feasted on my lips.
I am undone, I make my hell
the wreckage of her uncorrupted name
and throw myself upon the shards
in sympathy, a shattered fraternity,
(welcome brother)
each tender caress rising into the mosaic of wounded night
screaming in ecstasy.

Happy birthday, Albe

2006
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2003