January: Year-day 20

                                         
                                         
January: Year-day 20

Sometimes living is spiny hard, all hooks
and concrete, no empathy, no June grass,
and with nothing that I do does time pass
equitably.  Act at act (that is/ the crux
of it) like beasts clawing each other's throats,
or circumstance at act: so that I die
a little but don't grow--what, where, how, why,
and all else jammed together, damned & choked.

Scraping snow from my van's windows, I found
a "Hi!" in some, & softly chuckled.  Still,
I'd wanted to cruise Milwaukee/ the night
before; but the drifting winds kept me bound,
furious, and out of care, trying to fill
a dead time--writing, reading--in a poor light.

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