yesterday
though it was daylight 
I saw myself as a night landscape
holding multitudes
embracing divisions

I made an effort
to represent myself as split
to others
looking for pity
or a blessed contradiction 

poor me
and me
and me
who cannot connect
and remain at war 

then last night
I saw birds
flying across
all our backyards
with the moon behind them

in daylight
I might have known the difference
(if they were indeed different species)
but last night they flew together 
and they seemed the same

whatever distance I imagine lies
between the voices I speak in by day
is only measurable in mythic units
that do not in fact exist
when I’m by myself in the dark

At the end of a tangled day
I want a house that lets me in
when I’m tired, cold,
and ready to rest.

I want someone to offer me
the sweetness of kinks straightened
and knots cut or unraveled.  

I want a meal that does not feed on me
for hours after I’ve eaten it.

I want a few fine things to comfort
my bruised hands.  I want to touch
the good work of similarly 
bruised hands.

I want to sleep,
dreamless, 
for a whole unbroken night.

I want, I want, I
want.

I’m done with denial. Denial
cut holes in my hands,
and these things have slipped through.
Soaked in fatigue though I am,
I want to rouse my deadfall body 
to reach for those things,

and I want them to be
within reach.