The taste of last night's beer lingered this morning.
Three in the morning, I can't sleep. That voice
in my head, the one that's been telling me
This is not your home woke me
thumping like a timpani drum. The cats
are calm. The walls are thin
and, even with the plastic on the windows
lets the arctic weather in. Ice glazed
like thousand year old donuts
covering everything. Small tectonic glaciers
in the shape of tire tread and work boots
gray from the grating of the plow
and car exhaust line the streets. The voice,
it tells me, Wild birds know when to fly.
It's the caged ones that die. It's too early
for riddled wisdom, and I'm out of coffee.
Cold feet, bad TV, the memory of another
December fresh like the snow was
two days ago casts long shadows in fast dreams
in which the faces belong to strangers
and they all have something to tell me,
something I must remember,
something that is the piece to a puzzle
with the picture worn off. All that remains
is a sense memory and the voice in my head
No feeling lasts, it says. So it's better to feel it all.