To survive

Each day the last,

each a survivor. A shaft

other days fall into.

Books, tables, lost objects

call back to us.

I remember my razor’s edge,

the lift of my good bed.

Mine I said mine, doubting now

whether these fingers, these knees

would answer in my name.

A man assembled from nothings,

bones and tissues. He would eat,

he would swallow his name for nourishment.

At night the dark

looks out on itself, and the days pass,

a chain of black flowers.