XLVIII. sleepless
sleepless in a winter of undying night,
a caffeinated exhaustion of heavy eyes
and racing mind – racing though its feet
have been taken from under it; it speeds in
the only way its lack of agency allows:
down. through a trackless endless night,
falling. i have stopped waiting for the
ground to rush up and meet me. i have
stopped hoping for something different.
sleepless in a nightmare of undying winter,
a distressed tiredness so profound it asks
if there is a living thing that does not sleep
(there isn’t, but i’m terribly envious of the
thought of it). if my body requires it, let it
be done – but even when i finally sleep it
will be purposeless; just the long recitation
of a spell of teleportation between points
in time. to be repeated again tomorrow.
XLVII. snowflake
we groan like weight on clear ice,
ricocheting from bank to bank.
XLVI. new year
for years, we have not greeted the new year at midnight
of january one; instead, we say good riddance to the last.
we do not make resolutions in the morning; instead, we
feel grateful we continued to breathe without coughing
throughout the seasons – just breathing. we no longer
dare to look ahead, because we did that last and last year,
and things only got worse – we prophesied in sardonic
jokes that we cursed later, that cursed us later. instead,
we look at our feet; or, if we’re lucky, we look at those
around us. for years, it’s not been a new year: it’s been
a redux, and the restart has not helped us move forward;
instead, we retread the same paths and make the same
mistakes, and – if we’re lucky – we’re not the ones to
suffer from them, not really. just inconvenienced – if
we’re lucky. i can’t say it, but i [hope] this one really is a
XLV. reflection
why does the new year come in the winter,
the time for reflection during the darkness?
i cannot see anything in the dim mirror;
nothing shows behind me, only the tiredness
heavy in my eyes and the night all around me.
i do not remember the light of the summer,
nor do i recall the crispness of autumn or
the freshness of spring – but i apply those
adjectives out of the only hope i have: not
hope for the future but hope for what has
passed, that it was better once – which really
isn’t hope at all, for it only makes today
a deeper shadow. maybe i will always live in
and maybe the light will always be looked
back on from the depths of chiaroscuro,
the hiding places of the painting that catch
glare from gallery lights – which conceal their
details but offer a surface taste of luminance.
when i reflect upon the year my details
are obscured by a glare upon darkness,
but the glare is a wish that i dwelt in light
in the spring, in the summer, in the autumn.
tell me, is it true? look into your own silver
surface, if the illumination of fireplaces
and coloured lights and memory and hope
for the future is enough to see by – trace
your reflection and find me, if you can, and
maybe in your mirror i will be surrounded
by light.
if so,
please remind me.
XLIV. december elegy
the darkness weighs, the season presses,
too much. there is no day, here, anymore.
where is the warmth of the yule hearth,
where is the clear winter sunlight? it is
only night around me. even the stars are
obscured; it is an impure time and endless.
i am squeezed by the darkness, sucked
dry by its hard, cold lips and cast away
finished. the season has too many fingers,
everywhere gripping me vampirically:
my life leeches out into it, disappears.
the darkness weighs on every inch of me;
the season presses me into the earth.
i am undone. i am left boneless and lost.
XLIII. YYZ
finally getting cold in the airport.
it’s midnight local time and 3 a.m.
where it was 5 a.m. when i left in
the morning what seems like days
ago. i should put on my coat. an
hour stuck on the runway has turned
into 18 stuck in the conceited butt
hole of canada. i should go to my
gate to see if there’s a bench i can
occupy. instead i’m looking into
the unfinished service elevator and
shivering, sitting on an office chair
exiled to this corner of the check-
in wing (by the folded wheelchairs).
i’ve put my feet up on my luggage
and my shoes are off. i was hot
earlier, racing from malfunctioning
bridge to the clacking armour of
the baggage track, where i waited
2 desperately warm hours for the bag
i knew i shouldn’t have checked.
then i got a sticker on my passport
and a free covid test. i wonder how
my snot is doing in its test tube,
waiting in a queue for discernment
i guess. i’m getting colder but it’s
still 12 and 3 a.m. but only 9 p.m.
at home where i can’t be tonight.
they didn’t put me up in a hotel –
not that i have the capacity to find
a room (i still haven’t put on my coat);
don’t fly with condor airlines.
XLII. the wet streets of cambridge
the wet streets of cambridge \ an-
cient stone lacquered with fresh
rain | shining \ enough water in
the air to gleam on the earth | but
not enough for an umbrella \ we
walk with feet turning as hard as
the cobbles \ every corner holds a
treasure | framed | by brick and
the laugh of memory | shared with
us \ generous steps around the
brown and grey blocks of shining
history | but | it is your fresh mem-
ories that limn | each brick and
every cobble | your eyes illumine
every space | and every ancient cor-
ner is bright with your yesterday \
even in the dark country of your
rural college | the french café on
the corner glows with your recom-
mendation | the family grocery
spills warm gold and emerald at our
feet | a handmade vegan dinner for
later \ even these back streets and
these | oh so many steps | are bril-
liant in the generous light | of your
exuberance \ along the wet streets
of your fresh | gleaming | cambridge \\
XLI. bioluminescence
human skin is softly luminous; too dim
for the human eye, lost to our imperfect
perception; but still, our bodies glow.
if we could see it simply, what would it look like?
would the glow be a bright red, like a
flashlight bleeding through the fingers?
would its light leak into the ambient, or
would it be a contained luminescence,
the pale visibility of a glow-in-the-dark star
on a child’s bedroom ceiling – not even
spreading to the white popcorn beyond?
what creatures and whose eyes can see our glow?
do we fascinate the hidden with our boldness,
and delight the colourful with our brightness? –
or is our light invisible to all but the finest
scientific instruments? perhaps that is the
loveliest thought of all; we looked deeply
at ourselves and found something wondrous.
XL. imperfect metaphors
a dark stormfront closes a fist on me –
the nebulous pressure of something gripping –
and i wonder if it will take me away
or grind me to dust.
the season is a huge black brick,
perfectly shaped to sit upon me without falling,
no matter what position i’m in –
it weighs too much.
XXXIX. in the withholding
the night is swift and deep, and waves of rain
sweep susurrations on my patio.
the space beyond my window is an ocean,
black and thick as tar. it is a dense
expanse, an empty fulness packed with sound
and void. it is a hollow space, an endless
nothing spreading further than it matters.
when i’m sleeping, all the dreams inside
my head inhale to fill it, and become
the emptiness within the exhale, the
exhaustion of the breath of everything.
my consciousness is spent upon the dark;
my self is drowned beneath the endless rain.
the patio is swept into the mouth
of midnight, and the trees beyond are lost –
they disappear with sighs and never were.
i am adrift upon the heaving sea
of rain, an incremental ocean. i
am dead beneath the soil of night, an earth
removed of richness and a garden black
and turned but never planted. i sometimes
feel like i have lost, as if the darkness
stole from me. and yet i know, when morning
greys the sky with its sardonic pallor,
i will find my mind intact and world
returned, but loss is sometimes found in the
withholding.
Words of Giants 