Sunrise Up Front, Falling Back to Sleep to Shostakovich 14

now on the bed a body lays

side, three quarters,

legs akimbo, bent at knees,

arms stretched to adjacent pillow

body a swastika

morning seeps through louvered window

bones reveal

time passes

body whole deteriorates

flesh pulls away

fat and muscle groups their own republics

the flower doesn’t die as much as shift

Dimitri channels Mussorgsky, &

Lorca, Rilke, Apollinaire as chorus

no consolation of regal twilight . . .

falling back to sleep with the sun pouring in up front

reaching for the window, projecting to the other side,

waiting for the sun to declare mid-day,

the body breaks, not into shards

but into devolved, ungovernable cells

the lost promise of youth and laminar flow

to a bright communist future . . .

sleep doesn’t always arrive in twilight

“when we believe ourselves to be in the midst of our lives,

she dares to cry

inside us.”

edges reveal

no mercy, only relief

relief is temporary