Four a.m. Chiller

Cannot do this; nah not tonight

The cold haze of winter has gripped

Testicles are huddled to thighs

Bladder flush ready to spill chilled

Hoping to fall asleep before thrashing the blankets

To flow to the commode and feel it all spiral

Undone at four a.m. after the steam shower

Of a house too large to bother heating for just one body

Knit pants and sweater, head fleece and smothered

Talking to God under blankets and a pillow tucked

Between legs crouched horizontally

Praying that the moon could talk back

Browsing the internet earlier for any life left

After coming home from a distraction to not be home

As if there was someplace else to keep from staring

Straight into the eye of this sleepless-thing breathing long in the shell

Driving too fast and pushing through stop signs

Curving around steel that wants to not signal or conduct slow turns

Fuck it press the gas pedal and play chicken with the blood  

For a moment, a sip at the bar to feel like there was a reason to rush

The make-believe of skin to come home to, go out with, think of

In the times of typing numbers and syllables into a work day screen

As if Thanksgiving was not around the corner to know

There was that one year with a woman, her dog in the tent cuddled

The rain came in the middle of the night flooded the leaves

Swaying the dome-canopy picking up supplies and a hound

Rushing to structure drenched guided by draining batteries

The moon laughing

Family has a blood family seeing what brothers look like

With non-blood wanting to make blood

Fingers of nieces and nephews gripping lifting a seven month old

Above his head next to a speaker of Nina Simone singing

Watching a baby’s eyes dilate thinking of his dead with the tent

The winter and a thermostat that ain’t worth a damn to use