Early AM Yearning

Nothing remains to believe

except the possibility of belief—

lessening the definition of hope

into nothing more substantial

than bones and skin and

the terror of daybreak.

In the silence of the overnight,

the refrigerator's sudden buzzing

in a muted alarm, a warning cry

of omen and portent as I leap

from futon to coffee table to loveseat,

afraid of the ravenous piranhas

lurking beneath the surface

of the gray industrial carpeting.

I am tired

of proclamations of doom.

The damp cold is an uninvited guest

boring me with oft-repeated tales

of miseries more dire than my own.

My constant self-imposed solitude

has bewildered the boundaries

of the real and the actual,

like this snowy mountain peak

I hold in the palm of my hand.

While rainwater rushes down the slope

of my urban street transformed into falls,

the city lists, slumping alarmingly to the left,

jittering in a woozy double take.

Beautiful, glorious—I love you, Rosie—

the weather rolls in over the hills

like the foam frothed on a winter sea.

The true amazement:

that any madness intersects

with the obsessions of another,

that a common ground may

ever be reached. Yes,

I expect to be special,

but no preparation was possible

for the awestruck gape, the unique moment

of honest interpersonal surprise.

What do you believe in?

Don't leave me alone

adrift on this dinky dinghy,

riddling with constant curious inquiry,

believing there’s always more to believe.

The names of inks and archaic typefaces,

the word for the new feathers

on a molting mallard, progress

of geographical boundaries and canals

stretching the width of home states

into dead celebrities who may still be

kicking, details of unconsciously memorized

minutia must be taken on faith.

Gaps of knowledge demanding

specialized expertise—not only

can everything not be known,

there are always endless realms

of experiential information

to which I will never be exposed.

Inventing data in the trenches,

Canyons of hypothesized grout

flaking in the sunshine

like the sloughing amberized surface

of early miracle polymers.

I cannot ford these crevasses

with the achy stiff length of my body,

or devote my life's passions to creating

Gothic suspensions of stone or steel.

Creating a virtual analogue

to hypnotize the psyche into believing

in the level surface of the walking path

is derangement, an ignorance

of the possibility of scattered palm frond

underbrush and dusted branches

disguising a dug pit, footfalls

plunging onto befouled bungee sticks.

And yet the carpet is composed

of unnamable woven petroleum fibers

spun in a process I cannot describe.

Whispered answers suggest themselves,

wapiti, grafted seedless grapes, Marisa Tomei,

snippets of skimmed trivia

longing for an enzyme-protein connection

triggering a synthetic catalytic reaction

of what might momentarily stand as fact.

Another day has shimmered past

as today blurs to become tomorrow.

The collective scope of our project

is as generational as a cathedral.