Island Portions of the Drifting 3 a.m. Globe

Mist this morning.
The turning of the earth exchanges
heats, creates, mists.

All light is invisible.
Parts of light are visible.
All of light is invisible.
Parts light up, visible.

It is, I think, the morning of creation.
Birds like fat candy dropped in a hidden picture
game on the back of a cereal box, I go
out to the forest edge, nudging
dewtipped blades and tufts with shoes land-
-ing light footprints. The lawn of grass keeps her
opinions quiet.  The sun must be up
by now, behind the theatrical clouds.
Took it long enough.

The wind in the night blew open my mind,
my mind is now an empty room save
the welsh dresser.  At the cafe
Monte Carlo, drinking scalding coffee braced
with stronger notes of brandy we waited for a
ceasefire from the rain
the wind battering against us from the northeast.
Waited and waited. Hearing voices there
in the wind ahead of me even after I was
left waiting alone, and the lights all went out
except the tiny string of bulbs up by
the whitewashed woodgrain rafters.

All light is invisible.
Parts of light are visible.
All of light is invisible.
Parts light up, visible.


I'm guessing you too have smartphone
rooted firmly in the social media abyss, which is
like an oxford comma in comic sans between 
two of Dante’s lesser remembered hell circles.
I touch the screen and there is a pain in my hand,

another voice on the wind appears, 
disappears.  Voices from the past, ateet
the future bhavishy, the voice of arthritic rheumatism 
moving in the breeze as I finish reading an article on
David Foster Wallace thinking man is crushed unless
he can Truly Focus and Make Good Connections.
I am alone in utter seriousness and at 13%, the rest 
is like a dream last night.  Almost nothing is
what it appears to be on 
or offline.

I try to call my friend, who disappeared from my life
years ago and when he doesn’t answer I pocket my phone
and walk down to the beach.  Voices less
distinct here I think about how our lives drift apart,
how all of space drifts apart, galaxies is expanding light
years growing farther and farther apart from all points in the universe.
What are the implications of this?
A faint glow becomes fainter, all the power coursing like waves
across the finite universe fails to connect
with my phone, now at 5%.

All light is invisible.
Parts of light are visible.
All of light is invisible.
Parts light up, visible.


Matter is energy, but what does that matter
in a downpour at 1 a.m., the garbage and crumbling
concrete on the beach hardly register in the 
hierarchy of my attention. Shivering hum, shadows
hiding some long-ago built infrastructure built at the edge
of the limits, ocean as far as one can see, but blurry now.
The past, one suspects, other eras, had such 
black and white concreteness to them, like bedrock.
Hurry now. My cold bones feel made of chalk, I walk
in the wind imagining myself a bird
flying east, a byte, a digit over all this deep terrible sea roar.
It’s lonely being human.  I limp along, sprinting up some stairs
Streetlights through my squinting eyes
bounce like irridescent balls then dissolve
wetly, buildings so tall I cannot see the top
where there are people who could embrace me
but none will, my sheets will, the water runs along the road
into a sewer and back to the imperial hotel to bath in light 
shower and change charge my phone



All light is invisible.
Parts of light are visible.
All of light is invisible.
Parts light up, visible.

What is it that makes up a person
and why do we each feel so alone
at 3 a.m., my friend across the globe sharing
pictures of his kids, the acrobats on Beale Street tumbling,
Dawnie and her sunrise walks in Milwaukee.
These boundaries, a tragedy, of skin we accept—
whilst also feeling that our hearts, dil down deep
in their chest holes, are not our own
If our dreams could be laid bare, private feelings 
and ambitions excavated out in the open would they
wither like seaweed on the beach, I fear, alone
on the cold dark curve of the world facing 
away from the sun sol, anomaly 
of light striking a blow to how truly dark space is—
is it mostly light or mostly dark?


All light is invisible.
Parts of light are visible.
All of light is invisible.
Parts light up, visible.

I see you’ve messaged me.
Did you see I texted?
The storm has passed, let’s talk
about nothing less, yes, let’s catch
up. Sand in my shoes and in my hair,
sand gets into everything.  The rain is nice
and all, lol, but I also like a sunny day, like blue skies,
like, you know, don’t you?