frugality
i sleep with lights on.
several times I’ve tried
the bulb, to snuff it out
cool it down with clammy
palms, like catching a fruit-fly
mid-flight, or extending
my hand in literature class, but
spirits always find a way
up between the chasms upon
dark, tracing the linings of
my arteries as i breathe in
and out, till my legs give in
and reach for the doorway,
slippers pattering on
plywood, like rain
hugging pavement.
today, there was rain. rivers
shattering from the sky filtered
through aluminum sieves,
rivers like the ones you mothered
last tuesday as we touched
in the storm, bedsheets
hanging to dry wetted again.
(As I wrung them dry the second time, my nostrils drew mist,
and so I tasted the wet burn of my receding winter.)
today, the metro was early. I stared
hard at the cracks between
the L train track and
the bottom of the bridge, wondering
what it’d be like to slip and trip
into the gap, like a slip
of paper, a pre-loved chapbook,
some flakes of a leftover almond
croissant.
(I imagine you to be on the other side of the tracks, sipping your coffee,
edges of your puffer curling from the winter cold.)
today, i stow my flashlight
away as I reach for the lights.
I toss my night vision glasses and
snuff out my candles, close the curtains
so no one but me
could savor the darkness.
as the flip switches I inhale it,
the void, close my eyes and
melt into it like chocolate truffle.
I am so scared of the dark
I sleep with it nestled in my palm.