Tomorrow, a Different Universe

don’t pickle your eyeballs in the tears that follow
wine-binges. unhinge the pointless flaps of he-

said-she-said. swallow those brackish dry heaves.
knead your thick, desperate heart till it stops

crushing. flush the black plague-rat of indenture
from your brainattic. lock your parrot of crackers

in a closet for-the-birds. quit fossicking for reasons
to carry on carrying your cross. wave the brave, white

rag of surrender & let the bitter world eat its own chalk.
come with me. this is the corridor of life. walk it. past

the iron, gun-barrel doors of war. past paper posterns
of political make-believe. don’t peek through that baby

gate that reveals our world’s vast, heartless creche.
pass the stable door where four horses of heartbreak

whinny for the thrill of apocalypse. lean on me, friend.
I want to take you far from this, to lead you outside

to the after. can you run? can you cut your umbilical
to the sickly, cyclical moon and run? run like when

you were young & the breeze kissed your cheeks raw
& your face lifted to the lodestar of your own, plump

sun. this is what it means to be alive; to be released
from the need to explain/ protest/ ingest/ deliver/

fight/ kneel/ keep up/ struggle/ argue/ laugh & weep
on command. this glossy calm is the silence of after.

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