Get Up, John

Here comes dawn and nothing rosy about her fingers — stove-flame blue and some hand must’ve turned the burner on: the little tongues licking, gradually, the teapot of  us aboil, cooking off a giardia of  stars, the dregs of our night- mares. Who will place his fingers in the nailmarks, come near enough to smell death in its hair? Already we’ve some of us slid back into our bodies, restirring the air our breaths stirred all night — whoever we are while we sleep — and gone about believing we are here. Ambulance sirens assure us, a plum’s sour skin, what’s become of  the poppies, dried all but greenless, etcetera. But the yearling child reaching into the lineaments of  sun lancing between his crib bars — how might this shame us, that they seem to seem graspable to him?