9 nights dreaming

what’s the best way in?

the window as it rains, the legs of it,

dashing this way and that, all over

starting and ending, dazzling, dizzying,

dripping everywhere entering and exiting at once, 

clean and distracting, i,i

rock back and forth holding, shivering,

black cotton cleaving something.

is it joy, finished, crackling,

thunderous stamping, the stampede

of bodies, eager eyes snipping the fabric,

vodka tonic ice, red faces, hands, shoulders,

smiles? one hundred fifty ready to fight, shouting. its so short

sometimes this too. history. i,i 

if i could lay my head down in her lap as the night ends...

when do you know it’s too far,

been too long?

you’ve sat with a cool glass of water

waiting on a meniscus

and the embers beneath have ceased

burning your ass at all, now

it’s a glacier.

drip. drip. drip.

better in a month? a year?

there is no handbook

when they come for the lesbian electrician

with her shaking hands, who struggles, genuinely struggles,

with mental illness-- will it be clear then

through the muffled door, or across a hall of young mothers

just wanting a raise and to go home?

why bother with this?

she would soon retire anyway,

(you think of her dog she used to bring to the office before

they closed her office, black scraggly obviously spoiled and) 

why risk it all you’re 28 and at the beginning

there is no handbook for loss

for the questions, for love of course

i am learning the lesson of sitting with for now--

with at least the grief of want;

with the absence that makes the something grow painfully clear.

but how can it be standing to?

we all must live together, meaning

be kind and be challenged. on one foot,

and as yourself.

when was the last time you did something

you know could cost everything? 

for my love without hands to touch or lips to speak,

for my union sister when the workplace goes quiet and tense:

desperately, fervently, with strength

when we know, we risk it all.