On Winter Coming

The clouds make this the safest Saturday so far this fall.
I’m wrapped up in a blue sweatshirt, and the chill’s just there,
a skin’s distance: in all my hair, where my nerves end,
I’m aware of some uncertain bristling and almost shiver –
green breaks up in the tree leaves and gold takes over
in the hunger for sunlight from a blood-let scarlet sunset.

These days require years of kaleidoscopic concentration,
and I mean seeing through colored fragments floating in oil,
spinning slowly new combinations before a piece of mirror:
More vitamin C; my boots; a breath of bay mist;
one night, no dreams; and another nothing but
waking in doubt, in sweat, in my double bed.

Separately, none of this is sensible, and that’s the point:
I glance at the constant watch face, a black obsidian
that gives back my eyes glassed over with the fear of freezing,
and I’m numbed enough by that fear to watch this memory
like a movie yellow and deliberately disappear.
It’s got me; it’s got you; a street set with storefronts
and marquee lights stressing our own mannequins.

What apology can I make? To be in your way, or part of it,
(another lovely dusk sky, another roadside flower stand,)
these screaming ruby dahlias are all I’ve ever wanted –
I’ll wade onto a baldly dramatic stage of your plans
and you’ll open me up again with your bare hands.