if you ever wake up one day
more transparent than the day before,
closer to ghostliness than the day before, 

you may feel at first that this is 
the ultimate tragedy toward which 
every act in your obviously broken timeline

has pulled you (or pushed you depending 
on whether it was in your dreams or your past
where it all began). you shall look through 

the formerly corporeal palms of your hands
down at your shimmering feet and see
they are no longer concealing the ground

upon which you walk. you shall sit down,
frightened of sinking through the floor, sifting into
the basement like sand through a sieve.

at least, I did. of course, you may find a difference
between how you disappear and how I am
disappearing. I will just say there was no need

to be so frightened at first on my part because 
I soon realized that little had changed
since I’d never left much footprint behind me

before this, having always trod lightly,
never leaving a mark. instead I found myself
floating, walking as I always had

through the same rooms I’d had for years,
touching common things so casually
it was as if I wasn’t feeling anything as I raised

the coffee cup. from elsewhere in the room
any onlooker would have seen me as not 
entirely there as I sipped, and that

would have seemed entirely normal. I am,
I think, the only person surprised at how little impact
I’ve had on things around me. a see through man,

a whisper of a human, touching but never fully holding
anything. now, at last, I am frightened.
again, your mileage may vary. at least, it should.

In his head, loud
had always meant final

and had been the sound
of closing. It briefly surprised him

to find that his staggering in silence
after the loud was closer to the mark.

The bullets screwed through him
noiselessly on their trajectories.

The sweep of pain throughout his body
did not make a sound

and smothered
all the rest.

Death did it all
with a long white finger to his lips.

Red stroke by the window.
A cardinal is here.
Occasional visitor
who’s been around
in short bursts
for most of the day.

Under the feeders, also
present from first light,
a mourning dove.
Can’t recall the last time
one came and stayed
like this, although
we hear them often 
from overhead.

The cardinal holds court
from the shepherd’s crook
that holds the suet cage.
The dove holds the humble ground
below.

Red stroke by the window again.

The cardinal is gone — stayed long enough 
for cardinal purposes, although
gone too fast, left too soon for us;

the mourning dove remains — 
cooing, soothing,
peace in its voice
along with tears
and a promise of return.

Johnny loves tech,
say all of his work friends. Knows a
shitload about it. They ask him
to fix stuff all the time.  Just a week ago
no one could print, Johnny
figured it out before the help desk
ever got here. They don’t even call the help desk
any more. They just ask Johnny.

Johnny says ah, it’s nothing.  He learned
a while ago that all there is to tech
is sitting with it and thinking, asking
a question or two, following up, being patient.
He learned that from his mother. She knew nothing
about such things but would
solve everything else that needed solving
by asking a few questions
and then sitting with the answers, and it always
worked for her, so…

Johnny still lives in the house he grew up in.
His mother’s long gone.  It’s still neat
and clean there, the way she kept it, would
have liked it.  He sits at night and never
touches a keyboard at home. Sits and
asks questions, sits with no answers,
sits and sits and falls asleep sitting up
in her old chair. 

Johnny loves tech, they say at work.
Johnny thinks that’s nothing, loving tech.
He sits at night and loves his mother
who didn’t love tech at the end, the beeping,
the steady pump of the machines, the knobs
on the consoles, the way it all looked so clean
and foreign to her body as she melted away.

That’s what Johnny says to himself
while he’s sitting and sitting and sitting:
it all worked perfectly and still, 
she melted away. Some tech
isn’t worth loving. Some tech never
answers a single question. Johnny 
sits there in front of an error message
on a screen and screams inside
about how easy some people
must think this is for him.

There are moments common to all of us
when we wake from sleep and do not know
the time or even the day, moments 
when we decide not to find out right away.

I know that just as I do, you lie there disconnected
and think of all your firsts:  first pet, crush, love, cigarette, 
drink, blood, kiss, sex, death. All your recents:
current pet, crush, love, cigarette, drink, blood, kiss, sex. 

You consider death separately, right before 
the moment (common to all) when you choose
to look at the clock and remind yourself
what day of what week we are in. You consider

death separately as it means something different now
to contemplate the idea of the most recent death
in your world. You have to count on your fingers
and then get to know the calendar again, asking

if it was Todd or Joan or Aiden or Mike that was
the most recent. This is how we keep time now, how we
pull ourselves out of the blur. We fumble for glasses and phone,
asking: are we still here, still in recorded time?