Sometimes
I burst from sleep
imagining that I am self-sired,
never tired,  solo flight
across the Atlantic,
great aviator all alone;

easy as the day seems then
it usually takes only a swipe or two,
a smirk or three, a cutting framing
of what I thought was my glory
by a beloved one, and there I go 
down, down into the gray and cold.

Self-sired, never tired — those are my best lies.
As if I’ve ever been anything but a lonely son, as if
I’ve ever been unexhausted in this life. 
As if the hard sleep I rise from
hasn’t been stolen from the dark. As if I
have ever been cleared for landing.