Predawn Eastern Sky

// Laura Patterson

There you are half-burnt in the eastern sky
wondering when I’m coming back for you…

Your illness    wife blindness
your sickness    the trickster
our lives are your small deaths
flung higher and large
fantasy skylight all navy and pinholes
reality cardboard that puckers and spits
I’ve seen through this madness     cynic forgiveness
deader than deadness     dove gray complexions
that start to look tender blue under eye circles laughing at fresh
what could new bodies teach us?   celestial or other—
we’re better off gaping for planets we miss
and how dare your body keep craving and praying
you’re dying you’re dying and    (why don’t you get this?)
the flesh of your own star is all that you own