Loneliness

 

I know loneliness

It has curled up against me with it vapid breath, cold body gleaming, all bones

I have fed it bits of

Sorrow, happy endings, the beginnings of prayers

And it has stayed here, a lost dog faithful to the one who feeds it

Growing fat

I have offered it walks where the light of the moon

Is slanted

Over the trees like a cape

Warm and felted

But

It whimpers and waits

So well trained to my melancholy

But tonight

I have no desire to remain

Decent

I am spread

Outside the images of myself, butterflied

As if I still had time yet to imagine you there

Tasting me like an appetizer

I know anger

It has melted my words into gobs of paint, thickly enameled over my intentions

I have stared at it

From under my windows, turning it this way and that like a prism

And here it has slept, a rabbit with pink eyes and twitching face

Growing soft

I bring in out when no one is looking and try again to place upon it

that peace of domesticity

Warm and felted

But

It stands nearly rigid

So well trained to my defense

I have no ability but to remain decent

I am spread

With the images of myself still becoming

A daguerreotype drying, newly sensitive

To the iodine poured on these wounds

Blowing on a winter clothesline