Four things. All a body wants. Four things. Food. Drink. Sex. Sleep.
In no particular order, seemingly all at once. A circuit of strings
pulls in and out over the body’s systematic wheel, tugs up buckets
from the well of when and what the body wants: the sweet glaze
of butter on a tongue; the crisp sip of wine; the jab of pleasure
between the legs where generations lodge until summoned;
dreams like a soft animal that dies upon waking.
The cool blade of darkness strikes open the folds wherein
hide the body’s authentic splendors. April has arrived and the day is given back
the light we’re owed at the end of four o’clock in winter.
Where has that light been but some rehab room
with inconvenient visiting hours? Today, we unclose
our eyes where meth has made its bed. The noonday
will feed our blood a meal of sun, a gulp of blue-sky April rain.
Addiction thins without detection. The Resurrection does not happen
once but always here, because the past is chemical-drenched,
shoved in a refrigerator drawer of dread keeping it fresh, until.
Soon we’ll plunge our minds in formaldehyde, or chill them on ice,
maybe plant them in soil, or restore them to their systems.
Only in a solar eclipse can Earth see Mercury. Perhaps twelve years
is too long for addiction to cast its dark radius, but measure me
the circumference of the light of morning sun and we can do the math.
Smallest planet, too near to the glare, condemned to dusk if only
by comparison. In dreams we catch glimpses of all we will never
get to be— the flash of horses on a snow-stroked horizon. Our eyes dull until
the only light left in the face is the dim flicker of the television,
halving the price of knives to two easy payments of $19.95. In the morning,
the body discovers some fifth thing, having lasted through the night.
