The heavy, wet, navy blanket
was tilting my skull, left and right,

but not back, and sometimes
forward into a bowl, a chintzy

cereal, bluffed with crunched
sugar, smearing my eyes, my

coffee slathering all over my
shoes and my favorite paintings,

but the door was too close, my
hand working, my body flowing

like stale varnish in the basement,
my legs, two steps, and movement,

then the cement moving by, grinding
ankles and knees, these brain waves

crushing the pain and huge storms
of blood stirring my brain cells,

while the birds with perfect sixes
(torched pink by my favorite threes)
followed by eights in a blossoming

light telling me that air was
arriving slowly and today, yes

today I don’t want to leave
this world, as something has

taken my blanket and left it in the
ash can and the birds stretch

me into a terse example of reformed
ugliness, lightness of being.

.