These Hazy Days

Do I Sleep?

do I sleep or do I wake?

deer whittle pathways through

the gleaming grass.

I am dwarfed as a simple star is

in the shadow of our sun.

am I this field mouse?

or this cricket, perhaps?

I have the power to crush them

with my own two hands.

gold is certainly soft,

but goldenrod a stake in the back.

a snake in the back?

midnight sun opaque on black.

brittle skin boils and recoils

and into the dust my parents walk,

at their backs the symphony's swell.

I have never tasted proper bark.

I see the scores, the riddles,

the gouges on the arm,

but never the emerald tree borer.

never the inflictor, but the inflicted.

scoured arms spread outward like Jesus,

they stand on the bleachers—

school picture day.

canvas of light in my eyes

torn seams and gouges

sealed in the manila file folder.

         we're not offering any new positions.

         the sign out front must be old.

         Robert! take it down.

down to the rancid water

not an end of things, rather the middle.

no one gives credit to middles anymore

except maybe to violas and second violins.

are trumpeter swans blessed with musical abilities?

I hope they are. otherwise their feathers wouldn't fit.

around me the grasses grow taller, darker

until I can't see even my own hand

before my face.

nobody's there to hear me wonder

do I sleep or do I wake?