Marginalia

The day is a desert
I coughed up all night.
Down the hill
a dog barked into the darkness.

At some point, the story of your
life will become a ruse someone
resorts to when the conversations lulls

and he feels, in that bareness, exposed:

–remember when?–

and everyone assembled turns an ear
to a narrative that, as it unfolds then, mitigates, makes sense.


Yet never to include

the faint blue vein that pulsed through your forehead


and which no one ever remarked upon

or seemed to see, rushing like


the river to the sea

you felt without relent

   as it carried you away.