Wrong Answers

Hedge shears at this hour? No.
Some bird’s scissor-chirp.  Nice to think
of the neighbor hard at work, though.

Is the street collapsing? No.
Trains, jostling in the near yard
of the downtown terminal.  Nice to think
of an earthquake out there
changing everything, though.

Can’t feel anything inside yet
with certainty.
How’s my aching back?
How’s my aging bladder?
If I move too much I’ll find out,
so at first I don’t.

What time is it?
I must have swept the alarm clock
from the bedside table
with a mad arm sweep
sometime in the night
so I’ll guess: at best, it’s six AM.

Since I’m awake,
I’ll get up to write,
make an early start;
I find seven-thirty on the stove,
the microwave, the coffee maker.

The once-pliable concrete day
at once sets up hard.

Now
I need painkillers,
a pot to piss in,
coffee, silence,
metaphors, effort,
and wrong answers
from which to refashion
what I thought I was sure of
not ten minutes ago.