This Fast-Scattering Life

I cut my hand working under the broken sink. This is one way a poem can begin. One nods at holiness, as if passing a stranger, as if in a hurry to get somewhere else. Wind in the hemlocks that remain. Rain in the only sky I know. Morning passes cleaning the hayloft, dusting the rocks, glass bottles, suncatchers and prisms, reordering the books, clearing - as once a year one does - their writing table. Ten fingers because it helps. A mouse at the foot of the back porch stairs, its face noble in death, its gray fur streaked with dirt. Horses trodding through mud for their morning hay - what is gold, what thumps, what is loss. What is the cost of pausing on the stairwell to share a few words with someone for whom a few words is many? You put xylophones into the poem so you can say you put xylophones in the poem. Advantage Jesus. A new phase of the moon, a new phase of you. One steps outside at night to finish their wine on the front porch, listening to the last of the rain, falling through what remains of this fast-scattering life. Cat fights after midnight, chickens with leg injuries, blood on the barn door. What else do I want to say about psilocybin? My son writes songs in which the protagonist does a lot of traveling and is resigned to complexly-structured relationships. Before sleep, as upon waking, a rosary. Ladies hosiery. Only one for me, thanks. I remember in Burlington a little side deli that sold two hot dogs for ninety-nine cents, and I went there a lot, poor but not unhappy. I mean there's more, right? We who leak subjectivity all morning all over the place, ever sinking into whatever they meant who said "character is destiny." I mock palm-readers but read Tarot cards - what the fuck is that about?