Anytime, 
call me anytime

I say to the 
shadow

hanging behind
me, tacked to

my heels 
as if this were

an old cartoon and
my shadow could be

stolen by the 
right thief.

This shadow
found me and

stuck itself
to me long ago.

I barely recall
the pain of that

but I know I left
permanent tracks in my own

blood all over
everything. So when

the shadow started
asking for permission

to stay with me
I fell apart almost,

almost shocked that
all at once it seemed

I had a choice
in the matter; I looked

at how many rusted
brown tracks I’d made

that had already ruined
everything behind me, 

looked at the thorough mess
I’d made and 

surrendered to it, so now
when the shadow comes begging

to stalk me and cut me
anywhere I could go from here,

I just give one odd
mock-affable nod and say

Anytime, shadow,
anytime you want,

never even stop
to adjust the nails

in my feet, never even stop
walking and messing, 

never even stop to think
I could rise to my toes

and run, make it hard
for the shadow to catch me,

stop leaving my blood
all over my traces,

get far enough away
from it to only hear it

as a far-off squeak, reminder
of a lifetime of haunted trails.

Whatever you feel:

long twinges of fear
upon rising; terror
of a full mailbox; 
happiness before sleep
if only fleeting;

whatever you feel,
I hold myself open
for you in that feeling.

Bring me pain or pleasure
and I will carry it with you.
Bring me ecstasy or final 
despair upon grief’s arrival,
or your own fear of death
collapsing into acceptance,
I will shiver and then embrace
it, and you with it;

for I know the poverty 
of loneliness and how it ravages
one’s capacity to be present;
how it drives you from past to future
with no time to stop for now. I know

where you are when you stop 
and cower, for I have been there myself;
I know the neighborhood of contentment
even if your address is adjacent to mine,
or a street away or more.

Whatever the walk demands of us,
we will walk it. Whatever the talk
gives us to speak, we will say it.

Whatever you end up being,
I will stand there and see you as you are;

and whether you walk on without me
or I without you, that there was a shared path
once, I will never deny. I will never
allow myself the luxury of edited past
and altered future without acknowledging
that you and I once shared the present
and all it held, we carried it together,
and it led us to today.

Obligatory knife, billfold,
pack of smokes;

pen, notebook,
lighter, and phone

tucked into various
pockets and bags

which also hold 
all my dead friends 

from long ago 
right up to yesterday.

To pull one
mundane tool

or item forth
is to drag with it

smiling old ghosts
covered in lint.

After lighting a cigarette
or peeling an apple, I nod

to Eddie or Joey
or Kelly or Terry

or whoever else it is and
put them away along with

my everyday carry — the things
I need to get though the day;

all of them, knowledge and fire and edge
and wealth and Death and 

of course, the means to my art;
all of them with me every day,

smiling in my pockets, waiting
for my need. 

You woke up this morning
perched on a blister. Don’t protest:
you know it’s true. Hear me out:

you know it could burst
at any minute; you know
the fall into the leavings

will be dangerous, and 
you’ll be soaked with whatever
is in there. You understand 

the word “befouled”
as something more than
prediction, something less than

promise. You see you are both alone
and not alone at the same time:
those who fall when it tears open

may fall together or apart
and safe landing
with those who love you

is not guaranteed. Safe landing
is not guaranteed in any case,
and then there’s the matter

of the blister itself — whose hand
is it on, and will they choose to clench it
upon us all when it breaks?

All you have now is the sight of sky above,
the scent of the earth, the sound
of beloved voices, the taste of memory,

the touch of future. When it bursts
you will have the relief of 
the end of fear. When you land,

what you will have left of yourself
is unknown. You have this morning
now. That’s all any of us have now.

I don’t feel 
like buying a calendar
this year — demarcation
of the future feels like
a farce —

the days will surely
heat up and fall
into a progression
of same upon horrible same —

If there is to be hope 
in the coming year
I don’t want to pin it on
a date — instead I shall plant
a garden

and mark time by shoot
leading to seedling 
leading to bud and bloom and 
fruit or thick-enough root —

and if there is meal enough for me
at the end

I shall count it
as my small hope fulfilled
and if I can feed another

I will say I have exceeded my hope

even as the rest burns

for it is already burning
and what we mean 
when we say hope
is singed and buried in ash
so deep
we would not know it
if it emerged and came to us

and how will we cross
the date from the calendar
if we cannot know 
the day has come 

or even if
it has already come and gone