November Night

When it is this dark, there’s no point
in leaving the house.  You’re hidden
from the world.  The blinds
are down and the lights
in here are on; what reason,
really, to go outside and face
a cold November night
looking for safety or peace?
Here, there’s coffee, chocolate,
sandwich makings — everything,
really, four dim walls can contain
to sustain an existence. 

The only thing
that might be out there is
a balm to the gnawing
inside you — the rat chewing
at your core with his perfect,
slide along the bone bites
that take so little, really,
only a small shred at a time,
and how do you measure that against
the cold outside? 

Maybe he’ll stop,
sometime soon;
maybe you will
get used to it
and him and the hole you can feel
even if it doesn’t show up
on any X-ray. 

Against the possibility
of freezing in the open air,
losing your way, running out of gas
in a lonelier place, ending dirty
and stiff in an alley or a grove
north of town somewhere close
to the long woods that stretch
into Canada,
the rat and the close walls
and the light that spills weakly
from the hand me down lamp
seem downright friendly. 

Your life
is contained so perfectly in this tight space
that the open arms of the night
can’t possibly compete.

Tags: poetry, poems, meditations