with appreciation for Weldon Kees,
especially his “Small Prayer”
The career purgatoried into a litany of left turns, almost-theres, and no-way-outs.
The reputation he counted on was outnumbered by the five stages of grief.
The fact of everything evolving into something that orbited a wound.
The way nothingness kept presenting itself, unschooled and asexual.
The lack (and lack and lack) of the proper tool to sieve sorrow.
The new pills worsened the old illness and started a new one.
The reflection in the mirror caught his face and let it drop.
The building to house (the future) projects closed.
The film company got brickwalled by a lawsuit.
The weight of the hours hung from his teeth.
The woman he loved became someone else.
The blood in his bones played out of tune.
The things that were stacked loosened.
The things that were loose got stacked.
The wind in his lungs turned rancid.
The clock grew into a drumbeat.
The failure to find the right armchair
to accessorize a shotgun.
All he could hear was the bridge.