truly never so worklocked that in my wake lay more scratched redacts than poetry, but there it is and here this is and I'm not sure the it will count but it's the best I can do at 2am and 2am's the best I can do at honesty and, honestly, I don't know how not to say all of this so I try not to say very much at all-

I am wrapped in my childhood comforter,
and it is enough around me to keep off cold through cracks a century coming, a century like chimes pealing, peeling off, years falling away like leaves dropped and it’s still clingy autumn here:

but I’m building walls of books, too,
because in my bed they help to keep of the cold and for all its warmth Dixie sure has biting nights that even three years north of the Mason-Dixon have not yet taught me to love, and the books are enough, enough enough:

but I’m wooling my mind with words,
tangled like click, click, click I never learned to knit properly so I really should put these needles aside and just crochet, but it’s diverting to knot phrases in unfamiliar ways and everything here is so familiar that it’s a comfort, really, so I need these words to unwind me:

but walking these roads I feel at home,
in place, in peace, embraced, and sure as ever that my autumns will drop on red clay like it doesn’t matter how fertile the soil is I’ll grow here, dammit, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be no other words I’d rather weave no, no nothing else I’d rather read no, no no way else I’d rather sleep:

but these are not my thoughts,
my thoughts are very different.

Turning wordsmith smooth surely sighs surely smiles surely-
schorn smiles, singular glance-glint skip lip smiles!
Shower sounds soft silent night-out lunar light out,
stranger sleepfall supplanted.

soft, soft, soft skinshine stanzas
straying staying saying, delaying.

Epistle to a Night, In the Morning, On It's Migration South

The Night descends upon the world
and perches on my windowsill.
It looks like ink and sounds like spring
but I know it for other things.
The Night has known me all my life,
has stayed around through thin and strife;
Night knows me more intimately
than you, myself, or family.
Like clockwork it comes and goes
carrying my dreams, which grow
upon its back in fertile down
of exotic, wondrous, deep dirt brown.
Tap tap upon my windowpane:
flighty Night has come again.
A dream, a dream, and fluttered eyes
recreates my ceilinged sky.
To love means little 'less one can
know that 'yes' will come again:
The Night has known me all my life,
so you may know me as the wife
as one who's spread one's love around
to every city, shire, and town
without e'er breeding jealousy
in the breasts of them or me.
Although I don't excel at sports
Night's taught me well how to deport
at the most crucial game of all
(in play, in love): I play hardball.
I swing. I miss. I hit and run
and sweet my words, 'Tis all in fun,"
stream down my lips like salty lines
which outline my curves from heels to eyes,
for I know Night won't come again
unless I secure a win
for my team, contrived of one:
The ease of strain, labor for fun.
To dream, to dream, to be held tight
in the vast, unspoken night.
Every eternity or so,
winged dreams may come, the sun may go,
but for now Helios climbs
the stairs to his throned sky.
Alas, but then I knew it, too.
I knew he would, and so did you.

There's something sinister about a
wind that slides in after nightfall,
particularly if it's also the sort
whose whisper grows to a groan
by supper, groan grows to
a moan by bed-time, and
moan mounts to a shriek by
midnight.