MORNING

Gut wrenching clarity of a new day dawning
frost on my synapses
but I’m up and yawning.
The horizon sits contentedly, just out of reach
small crabs retire, scuttling
into holes on the gray beach.
If I didn’t know the sun sat proud and unmoving,
like a golden rooster on his post,
glowing, knowing hens are brooding,
I’d ask him how he musters the energy to keep on comin’ round
and ride that blue commuter train
across the sky, westward-bound.
No time for coffee
or scrambled eggs,
put the key in the ignition
try to pump blood back into these legs
that carry me back to nowhere,
carry me to the river’s edge
to the ghost towns on the dusty trail
that is my life, and the cold air
seeps in through a crack in the shower door,
as I soap my back and wash my hair.