To slide into morning
grumbling about light
through the blinds
is to be reminded that someone
who fell asleep last night
will not be doing this today.

To get up and pad to the kitchen
on your distressed feet, stiff
with age and nerve complaint,
is to do what last night’s departed
will not do again, with
or without pain. Imagine never again

disliking how early it is,
or never again bemoaning
the hour of sleep your body
is refusing to allow. That’s where
the other guy is this morning.
It’s OK to envy him briefly

but to be mundane, to make the coffee 
instead of giving in
to your agonized fantasy
of being able to postpone living
for a while yet? That is where
you are for a while yet,

so: open the blinds
in the front room. Be pissed
at being awake before the alarm.
Be pissed at the dead, who know not
what they aren’t missing, what you 
will have to deal with today. 

Be awake, then, and be angry
with the dead. Just make the coffee
before you go and do something stupid
like die or crawl back into one more
half-hour of not quite sleep. You aren’t
getting away.  Not today, anyway.