[Were it but Me that gained the Height—]

World like a coat, silver clasps, ermine lined, warm with the dead inside, rolling around in the red center—I thought everything had a purpose—this was back when I still drank—and wasn’t I a special traveler, nestled in that pocket amongst the butterscotch candies, the matchbooks? Unessential but accounted for, a steady thing to touch. World like a morning glory, withered every evening, world like a bristling dog, terrified of thunder—I can’t believe how I believed, or how that belief assumed a shape around my body, taking on the imprint of my heat, gaining solidity. When anyone questioned me, I held it forth, let them touch the sleeve—I needed nothing. World like an egret, still and white on the highway divider, world like a regret typed out and then erased—I cannot hold you any closer without everyone seeing, I cannot hold you at all, it seems, your evergreens, your curling potato vine; it’s all too much much, and I a bit of goosedown, a thistle fluff, naked and hatless, unaccounted for and extra, the world like a world like a world.