Because the night

REASONS

Maybe because in January the earth is forgetting things,
the earth of my childhood which seemed
moderately snowy, the earth of my adolescence
on which I spun with no volition,
none to ever come, I thought, maybe the earth now
turning to slush, the polar bear falling
through ice, its black skin, fiber optic fur
nearly a member of historic record, waiting
for one of us to wander by, confident
and plump, maybe this is the earth with blood
on its mind while I am thinking,
devoutly, what was that song and who sang
and who did I love or think I loved
but know there was nothing returned,
all these devoutly too, beneath this sky
on this street named for a tree
a long time ago in my accounting of time
but, I can only be honest, no time at all, really,
and maybe all the cars smearing
away and over the little hill
with its crown of water elms airily turning,
maybe they vanish entirely
and no one need worry
they’ll come to suddenly be
a catalog of glass and steam
and blood, this thing inside me
I was taught was tissue
though I never really believed that
to be anything approaching truth, as I’m approaching
home, or at least the place
I store a bed, an oven I was excited over
though in it I never place
recipes in the patient hope of proper heat,
though there is water,
it falls from the faucet
even in drought, enough, maybe, to always drink.