Better
Torn between friends and desire,
adulation and truth,
life as legacy or spinning earth,
poems that turn you and lift me up
or drill uselessly to the residues of heart.
My wall papered with reminders
about spirit, brigades of poetry
books bleed ruthlessly
beneath my window, potential
and pain lying on the rug.
Massing gray clouds pull the sun
to pieces and below me
a dirty, slick, and dying winter.
Surprised by my appetite
for what’s hard, beyond, distant,
pushing at the pulse of the planet’s strings
when the world should be full enough
with light this morning,
with more than enough earth
covered by mysterious trees.
I want to scorch my path across America
with my one book under my arm,
women murmuring “beautiful” and men “true.”
I want to run past rich immediate morning,
the sun breaking through gray clouds,
and for a moment
make it an embrace of words
and find something out.
—Mike Burwell