document 1.

may 17th.

"if this is how it starts
how hard is the rest going to be?"


may 18th passes.  so does june 22nd.
in the time between and
after, I am left only with my birds
and the rain

and it rains all the time.


august 7th.  I can no longer hear
the geiger-counter clicking of the gutters
over the echoes of crows and
car horns, though the mud that
devours my shoelaces each morning
tells me the storm still hits while
I'm asleep.


november 24th and even the pigeons
have gone.  buildings boarded up,
graffiti
all over my car.

nothing shiny left for them
to shit on.


january 6th now--
eight months and several
thousand
broken metaphors later,
the words still flutter cold in
my hands, my fingers
pressing snow angels
into the wings nestled in my
palms.  I caught them
staring at me
with the same wrinkled face the moon wears
at six-thirty in the morning, knowing
that the sun
is coming.