Day 1

by Michael Cluff

Guilt cascades out in dreams
where the castrations of
day and work and need and hope
snip at one another---
shears pruning thought into
amplified and unfiltered reactions.

Sleep scares and supports me,
the unloosed conscience
reconglomerates the
waking
drone of routine---
new patterns and paradoxes
worked out by dawn.

Slumber, a friend
lures me away
from the light lately:
I do not mind---
I will find
it
soon enough again.