Darkness, how persistent you are,
unflapped by a full moon on snow,
a TV in a room before dawn, floodlights
on a car wreck. And how inventive,
making the world seem like the inside
of a potato, a closed refrigerator,
insisting we are living in outer space
weightless as laughing sleepwalkers
moving toward you with minds on fire,
flashlights, knives, ladders, mouthfuls
of whiskey intending to kiss or spit
on you, never to report back. Are you
a distraction or the main agreement?
You rule lightning bugs, owls, the under-
world, the geological impetus of
volcanos, my mother and father
and theirs all the way back. I’m happy
I didn’t fear you much when you lurked
under the bed or growled in the attic.
I fear more hornets at midday. There,
there, you say when I’m stung. There,
there when I could lose everything I love.
When they stapled me together
under the brightest lights,
some of you stayed inside me so now
when I talk to myself, I talk to you.
You take days away. No dreams,
no tunnel or luminous angel or guard,
just you in the sooty, soothing nowhere.
No more flying rocks, no more bird sunk
into the ground. No more living
on an upside-down mountain.