Catastrophic

Things break
Or they're already broken
Most times
You can't just empty out your pockets
Most times
You hope to find
on the clearance rack
a pair of cargo pants
instead

Leading to Comfort

The ice sun
Beckons our attention
To the longest memory,
"It is always so very cold."

Have we never known
The spring, the gaudy summer,
Our hearts frozen,
Forgetful? 

Suffering rests in the flesh,
Fatty and robust.
We cannot remember,
Crawling ever towards reminders.

Where It Was Safer

So I was your shadow
Still am your shadow profoundly more
But were we not all each others' shadows
Un-belonging, mildly lost and slightly dirty, outcast

Seventeen was hardly a lot, but
It contained a kind of wisdom, shadowy
Of nurture in absentia
Of aggregate something-ness

And the years of held hands, in moments
Were of some distance-touching, mythical
Prompting shadows, sunrises, and twilights flickering
In time, out of season, but fitting somehow

They've said so many times
Come out from the shadow
From the close closeted space
But how could I when that was where it was safer