I’m awake too early again
in a semi-dark room where next
to me, my wife sleeps with a child-
like snore and my head is full
of this inadequacy and that
disquietude that come curling
up like smoke from a trash fire
& somewhere a woodpecker
is pecking at my cottonwood skull
sapping my potential
that’s when I know
I should getthefuck up and watch
the sky bluing in the east
and with a little luck a cloudless
horizon promising a measure of clarity
I waist another half-hour with thoughts
darting like sports cars between
trucks on a freeway until I finally
notice the single frond of fern
reaching for the sun through the window,
like a lover’s hand, so sure is the want—
93 million miles this light and heat
have come for me and my maidenhair,
how can I not shine.