Dreams got tired,
settled in my head.

Stopped working, 
didn’t move much.

Tried to nudge them
back into action — 

they knocked me back,
refused point blank.

I’ve had to let them
take up space.

I’ve learned to let them
do little and rest.

No idea if they’ll someday
turn back to their tasks.

No idea if I’ll be invited
along to do my part then

or if we’ve run
our conjoined course.

If I’m left behind,
may they find a road

to somewhere
they can really move.

My head has grown too tight.
My head is too small

for them to work, I know.
I get that now.

In spite of that I tried.
I did. I tried to make a space

for them up there,
but there was never enough room.

They spilled stunted
works and I know they felt 

every pain I did over that,
but harder, longer, sharper.

I tell them they can go. So far,
they remain in place;

surprised, I think, 
that it has come to this.

When they leave — and
they will leave —

there will be sorrow
but also a release of long-tense breath.

Perhaps something new
then for those dreams. It’s fine.

They were never truly mine.
They just lived here for a while.

He was not usually
given to nostalgia,

by which I mean
he routinely lived
without surrendering
to a suspect, edited version
of his own past.

However, he’d recently taken to recalling
past intimacies: dim lit faces; 
the sound of close beloved breath
in the dark; doing this not so much
(he told himself) 

out of nostalgia
as from a longing to hold onto
as many people as possible
for as long as possible
while facing a tidal wave of loss;

the people he had known best,
known their best and their worst,
who’d known him at his best
and his worst, the ones
who’d taught him his full identity
in the dark corners
of long-lost bedrooms. 

It was not for lust or love,
not from a yearning for rekindling,
not even a touch of what might have been;

it was because his world had faded
to such a pale imitation of life
that he hoped
a little dark musk from the past
might remind him
of how bright it might still be.

Waking up talking out loud —

EVERYTHING IS DISAPPEARING

recall
the morning glories
climbing the chain-link fence
one tendril crossing the face
of the arborvitae in the neighbor’s yard

the monster heat of the bonfire
on Fourth of July
in the sandpit

what it was like to breathe and taste
before cigarettes

leftover vinyl of artie shaw
discovered in best friend’s barn
scratched to fusstone but still
revelatory

orchards in abandoned farms
gone back to poplar and scrub ferns
timid among the rotten fruit

lying awake at night
with nothing but dark and not
caring that there was no sound

EVERYTHING IS DISAPPEARING —

recall
names and dimlit backyards
names on shallowcarved school desks
names and names
and blame
and fervent hope of notice and friendship

stumbling fingers on the first joint
rolled with single wide papers
praying it wouldn’t fall apart before
the watchful gods of freakdom

recall
rare birds and longed-for cars 

far from famous bands
gone to accountancy and parenthood

slinky patch jeans and embroidered 
Big Daddy Roth army coats

recall
the first switchblade
hash pipe
condom stolen from dad’s drawer
long before the first
kiss

recall
hopeful
waking up
talking blue in the face

Fresca and vodka

recall
sweating in the middle of a broke-ass broken sleep
waking up talking VERY LOUDLY

EVERYTHING IS DISAPPEARING

everything inside is solving itself for zero
cutting larger and larger holes into this being
with its comfortable shoes and sensible coat
with skin and graying hair gone to pot
this battling hydra refusing suddenly
to grow its old head back

everything
yes

EVERYTHING

Everyone’s planning
to become the fictional
heroes of historical novels
no one’s written yet.

Everyone’s
not quite
far enough
from each other.

Everyone’s 
in the soup
and no one’s felt
the scalding heat yet.

Everyone’s got
a lonely shoulder and
a broken throat to call from,
though not many have started.

Oh, everyone.

Think about this:
all the people
you could have been, 
and you still turned out to be everyone.