Crestfallen

Gray mist yawns on my shoulder;
lifts, stretches, seeps into my eyes.
It expects me not to complain,
but I say, Not today. Please, not today.

But it doesn’t go away.

Now my head feels like a dead imagination;

thoughtless as a cloud, drowned worms in a puddle.
Every word I’ve ever written doesn’t like me.

I place my head in my hands

and start to worry:

She could walk in, at any second,

and see me as I really am—
a heap of gray; a river of colors
draining down the sewer.


(From the book Kairos)