Poetry
Blood draws dissolve into Christmas lights/
veins dizzy with the latest medications.
The other man holds the letters/
to his nose, inhaling deeply/
One letter after another he lifts and smells
In the hospital there was time/
to read to dream to act/
to read Freud’s dream book on his couch
Your left-behind clothes still occupy closets and/
clotheslines in the basement. She refuses to/
donate them away,
I didn’t know/
one went grey down there too.
A row of corrugated gray huts/
hunkering down in the November rain./
Across the way the fire burns night and day
