Pitch-black the night:
God is awake yet,
sitting on the hospital roof,
feet swaying, dangling from the ledge.

Bitter cold is the wind,
howling like a broken heart,
dancing in the doorway
around the newly-christened widow.

Hard are the hearts
of the bedside mourners;
the brother, the sisters, the parents
whose eyes still trace the floor.

And pitch-black remains the night,
God jubilantly whirling, barefoot on the roof,
little more than a mere child
with another new friend to amuse.

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

So I'm talking to this girl.
We're sitting beside a fountain,
people walking past,
it's busy and loud, but we stay focused.
I'm trying to pick her brain,
find out if it'll be worth it
for us to stay together,
being that she's a little batshit crazy and all.
And then I hear this voice from
way up above my head say,
"Tyler, she is not the one,
for my name is God and I know and see all."
So I says to God, "God, with all due respect,
I'm trying to have a conversation with this lady, here.
**** out."
So the girl, hearing me talk
to this voice inside my head, thought
I was completely insane.
"Well," I says, " I guess that makes two of us. "
We're still together, mind you, six years later.
I think maybe God retired after that.
He hasn't spoken since.

They’re just things, they said. They can be replaced.

30-year-old handwritten letters from friends.
Photos of a place that no longer exists.
The stuffed animal that had a name.
The quilt grandma sewed for me.

You have your memories, they said.

But my possessions were the keys to my  mind’s drawers.
My old life is locked away.
I can't see it now,
through the smoke and flames.
I can't smell it,
only the  poisonous odor of melting vinyl.
I can't hear it,
just the crackling and crashing of the trees.

You’re lucky to be alive, they said.

But I'm having trouble proving I'm alive.
I have no passport, drivers license or diploma.
No utility bill,  birth certificate, or computer hard drive.
No Social Security card.

Some have it worse than you, they said.

Some always have it worse.
I didn't lose a husband, mother or child.
Just my cats. I thought they would follow me out the door
but they ran in the other direction.
I try to think of them in the forest somewhere,
climbing trees, and
not as charred bones.

But
I have the car.
I still have the car. I will drive it far
far away
from here.

His name is Kevin.
His wife sits beside the bed,
twisting wedding ring.

Chemotherapy.
Hollow eyes, losing weight fast.
Choose this or cancer.

Just a month to live.
Declining quickly. Father,
uncle, brother, son.

Mother & father
fated to outlive their son.
Holding hands. A prayer.

New dog waits at home
for his best friend that he will
never see again.

Rain hits the window.
Kevin lifts an eye and smiles.
This is the last rain.

He knows these faces.
These faces, likewise, know him.
This is family.

Last beautiful thought:
his two sons playing in the
front yard in the sun.

Two kids in sunshine.
Their mother watches - a smile;
dad has become light.

I am scared for my nephew.
Indeed, for the coming generations,
I am terrified
that they may never come to know
the clean smell of a forest
wet with new rain,
or the sound of a cardinal's song
breaking the snowy hush
of a January morning.
-- So wrapped up in, so fixed upon a television
broadcasting images
of the apocalypse of beauty,
of replicated emotion,
of fabricated belief.
-- I hear my nephew ask,
"What's a rainbow?"

Come a little closer.
I want to read what's in your palm.
Yes my fire's burning
and the air outside is calm.

Your eyes in the moonlight
remind me of my sweetest dream.
When you touch me like that,
sends me floating in a stream.

Yes, I feel like I'm swimming
and the water is just right.
So kick off your shoes now,
let's both sink into the night.

And do you remember
how I walked you home before?
Just a timid boy then,
standing outside your door.

But we're all grown up now
with desire on our tongues.
And my mind is swimming.
I want to breathe you in my lungs.

Yes, I feel like swimming
and the water is just right.
So forget your worries.
Let's both sink into the night.