Someone’s calling, maybe,
but I’ve left my phone in the car,
again, beneath the boots, behind the passenger seat.
The problem is, it’s too much for a man to
wake up, get dressed, and simply walk
out from this place. It’s too much when
he’s nothing to lose, except his clothes,
and the door, once it’s opened, and his breath
in the cold air’s windy glow. There’s nothing
that will stop him from tip-toeing across
the invisible coals, naked like the snow.
Out here, things do their best, naturally,
to hide, by trying out as other things,
such as forgetting, or the kind of certainty
that comes with being lost. And it’s strange
how things lose themselves when they
have been left right there, here,
out in the open, but our eyes, of course,
in the end, adjust to darkness,
and belong to every fallen thing. Like that stuff
on the walkway, the chalky equations
we don’t understand. The scalped
footprints, trampling each other as they make
their way without the light. Or, that satellite
pretending to be a falling star inside
the milky way, moving toward the faraway
crescent moon, a flag.

– ph, 12/02/16 Morriston, ON