A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe”
--Albert Einstein
Downstairs, shrieks, too much Tequila and beer,
everything bumps and laughter. The night is icing over,
the talking’s just begun.
Whoever knows a book best leads the discussion.
I listen to the radiator tick in my room, exhale its
breath of fire. Someone chatters about acorns to
squirrels, someone else about Thoreau to rapturous,
half-drunk grad school girls.
All of us small in our rooms, but think we’ll add up
to something, later. An outpouring of stars seems certain.
Against sand, and black density.
Out the apartment window, it’s a blue night dome.
Dogs skirt around a throw of pure halogen light.
The writer worries about freedom. Squirrels avoid
counting the calories in their nuts. I think about
my brother, sleeping it off in a Salvation Army shelter.
Our havens recede the faster we drink and sleep,
the faster the weather gets cold, and slow.
I’m shaking as hard as I can without being noticed.
I’m dancing like the other shoe is dropping, to save us all.
Nothingness feels clean. Stars, like the monolith of home.
These books make discussion. The Mothers of Invention
made records. My words make a ceiling I keep revising,
and raising, or I’ll never get closer. Close enough for
a sleeping star to drink me, drunk enough to be frozen,
screaming laughter through to its stellar core.
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