As happy as
a dead person

(specifically, that one
emerging from

the pile of leaves
in the corner lot).

That one whose face
has just been exposed

by this teensy tiny wind
that popped up just after dawn. 

The neighbors on either side
must either have known it was there

or have been improbably oblivious,
as that huge smile

took a while
to come to the surface

from the look of
the rest of the face,

all white and naked
bone. Setting speculation

on why it’s here
and how it went unseen

this long aside, 
can’t help thinking that

as happy
as it looks now to me

as it smiles and peers
black-holed out

of the oak and maple
clutter in the lot (which is

now I see also full
of trash bags and other

hopefully neutral humps
in the underbrush),

as happy as it appears
to me taking 

my plodding wobble 
of a morning walk

past here as I do
every morning,

that’s a level of happy
I could aspire to,

and after all these months
of unsteady and hurt,

I finally don’t care how
I might get there.

Here is a mirror
I look at daily.
First thing in the morning,
last thing at night;

I asked it all 
my easy questions
long ago,
when I did not mind
the truth;

now, though,
I whisper my worst questions
first thing in the morning
and last thing at night,
exhorting it to offer

“wrong answers only”

before turning my back on it,
as I know it cannot lie.

This is
an estimate
of size:

to say
as large as or 
as wide as

then to
bring in
a vast noun

such as
sun or ocean or
human love

and say this
is as large as
that

This is 
an estimate
of intensity:

to say 
razor or
hammer or vise

then to
speak of
a body part

and offer
a contradiction
such as

a chest squeezed
softly until agony
became a bed

This is how
to speak
of pain:

to say one feels
as would
a red giant star

warming slowly
to full scorch
just as one might describe

how it feels when
a vise is tightened
quarter turn at

a time until
jaws meet
through pinched skin

as thick
screams
ensue

to offer comparisons
until one’s head 
cannot hold them

this is how
to write about
a sickness

that will never
let go
until one reaches

a place
beyond
comparisons:

an estimate of After

My body is trying
to kick me out.

Each morning
I must sit for a moment
on the edge of the bed
and take inventory
of what hurts and how

in case the body has found
new vulnerability, or pushed
a known one to the verge 
of breaking.

My body is trying
to put me out.

I check to see
where the locks are strongest,
where they are most tested.

My body is trying
to throw me out.

Which door is weakest
and what is it exactly
that is trying so hard
to push me through it
into whatever
is out there to take me
after the body is done
holding me?

From here
on the edge of the bed in the dark
before full light
I can feel 
my body winning,

pain growing and spreading
wherever it seizes me
to pull me closer
to ejection.

Then what?
More to the point:

once evicted from the body,
will I be me
without that home?

Will the pain stop?