Usher

Make of me

a mercy—

This stone-eyed world

I can’t see past

to what waits

in the wings

____

The dead wake for nothing.

     Or wake & nothing

is still there.

The wide meadow. Deep grass.

     Distant ships.

The far fires

Only glimpsed

     from a distance.

Nothing looks back,

blinks twice.

____

Beg the ghosts—

be gone.

Bid the dawn

so long—

Let the day darken

your bones.

Let the dusk

usher us

into it—hail

the thick dark

alongside me,

singing.

____

Finish

me like a fish.

____

Easy then being nothing

     wanting more. Now,

a small something,

I want only

     an end

to the suffering—

to quit this knocking—

     like a boat lashed

tight to the dock, tossed

during storm—

     either cut me

aloose, sent

wild to sea, or yank

     me inland—dry-docked—

spare me this long

longing, tugging

     at the leash, moored

in between.

____

I believe no more

in nothing—not yet

in something—

the severed wing

of a bird in the road

still stirs, lifted

by wind.