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.

This doctor
brandishes the same map
of a head’s interior

that I’ve seen at least
eight times before and it looks
even older than I do.

Before she gets in
she reassures me she knows
where she’s going.

I close my ears and eyes
to her. No, I said,
I don’t see how that’s 

possible. I live in here
full time and I’ve never
seen you. Trust me,

it’s really fucking weird in here
and your map won’t help.
I’m not even sure I can help,

never mind anyone else. Let me try,
she says; I know how you feel
but it’s a very scientific map

and I have done this before. I know
there is always something new
and unexpected but I’m prepared.

She wore me down, waving that map at me.
I’m so tired of thinking I’m going
to die from this, I let her in.

She comes in and leaves now
at regular intervals.
I sit with that.

Yes, it’s tangible; the soft touching
of weak pink knots, the occasional kneading
of what must feel to her like wet dough,

a relaxing vacancy when she leaves
that fills back in when I get home.
I don’t ever know if I’m better after

or just more ready to face
the edge of the map
when she gets there

and we both fall
into the margins
where the dragons are.

Barely past dusk,
first of June: today pitted
sweat and fatigue
against joy at the light
pouring down and joy won. 

Something tells me there won’t be
a lot more days like this June 1st
in my future. No reason to 
believe that to be true
except that following

the story of my body
suggests I’m old enough
to say confidently
there’s no reason to believe
I’ll beat the odds;

no reason not to sit back
and soak in June 1st
as if tonight I’m getting
to attend my own funeral feast
No one’s sad. No one’s crying

and I’d be fine to call it right now.
Let it be this good, this shiny.
Let it end this warmly,
this full to my brim for once
and for all. 

There was a robin
under the feeders this morning 
as there has not been in 
I can’t recall how long — 

They prefer to be in the backyard
on the ragged lawn under the giant maple
where the raccoon is raising kits
who may be gone by now — 

They prefer to feed in the scrub grass
among the pesky dandelions
that make up half the green back there
and all the yellow and then the white — 

To see one upfront under the feeders
that are customarily occupied
by sparrows and starlings
woodpeckers mourning doves and cardinals — 

suggests nothing or everything or something in between
That my powers of observation are growing
or that the robin’s in need of new vistas
as am I — 

Maybe this one was just lost in flight
and stopped to see what the fuss down there
was about before moving on
to its ultimate place in the world — 

Yesterday I found a dead kingbird
on the edge of a supermarket parking lot
lying softly in its ultimate place in the world
next to the tall windows of an empty bank building — 

I looked up from death  
into those mirrors so black 
Saw myself looking back
Empty as a body on pavement — 

I think about all of us staring into dark windows
Thinking about how we go and where we end up
We worry about finding out sooner than we’d like
That robin made the most of it without worrying I trust — 

That kingbird I hope felt nothing like my fear 
as its reflection loomed before it in mid flight
As it fell from flight to Earth
where it was received with something like grace

You expect
every morning
to be different,
and it isn’t.

No one coddles you
in any way
you desire.  There’s no
long-awaited recognition

that you are a gift.  Instead
you move slowly around
your shabby rooms trying 
to be quiet and minimal.

You don’t even bother
to wrap yourself in festival
colors as you used to. Ancient
T-shirt, ratty sweat shorts,

beat shoes or none if you’re staying in.
Usually you are staying in.
Coffee then the desk if it’s a work day,
and since it’s usually not off you go

instead to what feels like
your real job:
looking out dirty windows
at your leveled world

and wondering how far
you’d have to go
to find a better one,
if there is one out there.

To the desk, anyway, 
as soon as you can tear yourself away
from your captivating despair.
Make a record of all this. It might

do someone some good.
It’s done nothing for you, true.
You never became the gift
you longed to be. Maybe this will.

The point is to live so widely that
something more is left behind
than tiny paper cups on your bedside table;

laugh so fully the hospital linens
get up from where they cover you
and stagger away in fits of giggles;

and love so thickly the whole staff 
comes running when you code
to applaud and wipe their tears.

The point is not to leave a hole
when you pass, but an entrance
for others to walk through.

Waiting for coffee to brew. It’s been bright out but I’m a snoozer. 
Lying here guilty, nothing is done. I’m such a loser. 

I usually do at least one thing before coffee. 
Start a poem, balance the books — but not today. Call me loser.

So far? I opened my eyes and I fed the cat. I showered and opened
the living room blinds. Nothing else. Not much to say but “loser.”

Some folks would tell you it’s enough to chop wood, carry water,
let impressions lead to enlightenment. Keep it simple, loser.

Tony, you may say, it’s just a word. To fight is to win. I may say:
this is not your path and I’m not on yours. Stay your tongue, loser.  

Come to the table
and I will serve you
all you’ve asked for:
look, it all awaits

on formal china
with proper silver
set beside the plates
in proper order,
all laid out upon
the best linen,
spotless
and soft.

I promise this to you
in the name of propriety
and all I have tried to do
to explain my faults away,
at which I have failed
in spite of decades of 
effort. 

You tell me 
I should have just tried harder
to not have the faults
in the first place
and we would have been fine
eating little but bread 
with our fingers and cheap wine
from old jelly jars
while seated upon stones
in a ragged ring around a fire.

I look at this table,
think of all
I’ve spent upon it.

I look up at the vaults of heaven.

I am not at all sure
I’d be the same person today
if I had done what you asked.

Perhaps that is your point:

if I’d been welcome
in the house of your God
all along I would have been

a different man;
you would be here,
and I would not.