Not to assume anything
but if you are alone
at the moment you read this
with no one hovering at your side or back
and it’s a time of welcome solitude
stolen from your usual crowded
life, then I wish for you
to find here a set of wings
to raise you from the throng
into this happiness
whenever you want.

Still making no assumptions
but if you are alone when you read this
and it is a longer moment of alone
leaning into or full-on stuck inside 
a life-poverty of loneliness, then
I wish for you to find here a set of wings
that may take you far and wide seeking
and finding others to enrich you.

I set now my last assumption aside
and say that if you are not alone 
when you read this, if by choice or chance
or great good fate you are with those
who make you happy or at least 
allow you to be fully yourself, then
I wish for you to find here a set of wings
long and strong enough to raise
all those you love to be with 
to whatever height seems best
for all of you.

see that fault line across
your well-being

take a silver nail in one hand
a diamond hammer in the other

pound the former with the latter
and nail those parted sides together

pretend it’s all better because
no expense was spared

to make broken look whole — not
to make it whole but 

to simulate wholeness
to the casual observer

and what lovely tools and 
materials were used 

such a shine one might think
it would last but

one silver nail won’t hold back
earthquakes no matter

how hard the hammer
used to drive it — in other words

face down in the most 
expensive whisky

is still face down
even if you look distinguished

sitting there

Humidity today 
is going to be
monstrous, says

the face on the early
weather report. 
She’s not to blame 
for that, although

she sounds a little 
guilty as she says it,
empathizing perhaps
with those of us
who are up
and watching her now,
giving the early warning
that it’s not going to get 
any better than this today,
or apparently for
the next few days; it’s like
she knows it’s going
to get to some of us 
more than others.

For example,

I’m broke as hell
right now
with a wonky car, 
waiting for cash so I can
fix it — so
I’m going to be
stuck in this apartment
during this swamp wave,
restricted to this hovel where
all the surfaces
in every room will soon be
sticky from the air;
I’ll be sticking myself to one room
running its inadequate AC
all day and night,
cranking up yet another bill
right when I can least afford it,
not that I can afford it
any better in the winter
when the gas bills go up
as high or higher than
the electric bills 
do in summer.

This is why
I like spring and fall:
the sense of relief they offer
when you’ve endured
those kinds of hardship

is as good as it gets
for some of us. Those are 
seasons not so much of hope
but of temporary satisfaction
at having ground out a victory
over something that has tried 
to break us and failed;

those few weeks of feeling 
like we dodged a monster
coming for us,
at least for a moment;

kept hold of roof and light,
managed hot and cold,
kept food on the table,
did it all for a few more months,
stuck around to see 

if the next forecast would be any kinder, 
to see if it would offer anything
we could cautiously call hope.

Go at once to wherever you keep
your coffee cups and take one down.

It needn’t be your favorite cup; perhaps a gift cup
with a chip in the lip that you can’t toss

because of who gave it but won’t use
because of the hazards involved; maybe

something left by the previous renter,
long in need of a purpose, 

a cup never used because you don’t trust
a particular stain inside

but it’s hung around the shelf
“just in case.” (You’re poor. You don’t toss

things you get for free — at least,
not until now.)  

Take that cup and go somewhere
far away from the usual people.  

Pray over it, or do whatever you do
that’s a prayer for you;

pour whiskey into it, burn a bill in it,
it’s yours to do with as you wish;

when done, hurl it into the distance
and listen to it break. 

The next time you have a coffee 
first thing in the morning — gray-lit, still tired

and dim headed
as you sip the weak automatic brew —

remember that sound.  
You put it into the world,

that prayer, that bowl of smoke.
You filled it and broke it open.

You made sacred
what had been profanely useless.

Whenever you recall that sound
you will know what you’re capable of.