there is no such thing as half-light

there is either hope

or the stir behind eyelids

sudden sight of the sun 

off the brick behind my window

behind my shrine for Jeanne

sometimes I wake 

afraid they’ve taken away the night

and Joanie asks how I’m doing

handing me the pot of earl gray

where I say weather weather weather weather weather

there is no such thing as insanity

there are systems

rushing through us like climate

it is all in my head

the clatter of a pot in my palms

the slide guitar and muzak 

at the Upper Bend, at the movie, in the brain

abuzzed numbness

an ambivalence of becoming 

my mother

there is no such thing as alone

I talk Charlie away from the white of the current

with words I have a hard time believing

and he makes the same joke 

tripping in the rain

holding his mug of ginger

looking at me naked 

in the backseat of my van

this and a bullet to the head

would fix me

as a ritual I ached 

at a dream like a coastline

I manifested loss

in a first hunk of rye, sometimes

I wake afraid

they’ve taken away the night

replaced her with some fishbowl

clairvoyance off running at the sun

yearning for a glass 

to my temple

there is no such thing as the sun

and her consequence

prettying my braid

it’s all in my head

there’s nothing more to learn from the light

climbing from the black box of day

it’s all in my head

the summer, the murder,

the puddles of blood, and Ashbery,

the farm, screaming kids, the burning IV, and Carson,

Antigone and a child reaching for legs 

that are no longer there, and Myles,

and Mullen, and Kinnell, the feed 

full of mothers

begging not to die, and Carrington, Wojnarowicz, and Varda,

Darwish and the man on my block who is starving, Levi,

and Sappho, Berrigan, Fanon, and Clifton,

Starry Night, and the man on your block too, Gladman

and Cronenberg, The Met, The Cloisters, The Clark, Christ,

Black Flag, Buddha, Boris Karloff, and the stiff gaze

of angels, Kate Bush, Arthur Russell, Ethel Cain,

and some money from my paycheck

aimed at a sleeping man’s body

there is no such thing as half-dark

there is either hope

or the stir of an eye yet to open

we must believe this firmly

and speak it

I am not embarrassed to be broken

I am embarrassed to be naked

waking up like it’s given

I am calibrating the scale

on which I’m expected to grieve

I am dreaming my rapist 

shot in his church

for the second time this week

there is no such thing as dark

there is light

and the maximalism of grief

indistinguishable from love

using every window 

as its mirror 

translucent selves

we are already dead 

in the rainstorm

from deep, summery sounds,

painted bowls full of rain

I have always known 

we would all be dead 

in a month or so

since I was 9

calling my mom

to feel the subject shift slowly

like a statuette of Saturn

spinning soft in our palms

I ask how she’s doing

and she sighs

I ask about the snake

put my purity behind me

ask about her mother,

if I was normal

and she smiles

I can hear it in her voice

there is no such thing as innocence

there is comfort

and the things we kill to protect it

through the half-light which shocks me 

she says you used to be so scared

the stars were gone for good

so I end up at the river

where myopia tastes like omniscience

taste the weather and today 

there was thunder and rain

and sometimes a poem

and a bullet to the head

would fix me 

only sometimes 

I wake afraid they’ve taken away the night

so I end up in my garden

but I saw her standing like a gate

and there was no such thing as light

there is dark 

and the people we grope through it for 

to touch