My Wavering Triumph

(with thanks to Grace E. Kelley and D'Shan Berry, during whose METABOLIZE workshop the first draft was written!)

Photo by Amy Vann on Unsplash

Breathing at fifty-six,
yes, next right thing.

Heart flutters,
fibrillates and sinks,
is weighted down,
bruised with worry.

Things done, undone.

I get up at two
because my body
has forgotten how to sleep.

I drink water.
Coffee. Poems.
Breathe and pace,
breathe and pace.
Talk to myself
and to whatever angel
might be eavesdropping.

Coax myself deskward.

Friend in Orlando
doesn't object
when I write to him
at oh-dark-thirty
to unburden,
or to frolic in word-gardens,
scamper among
a pan-angelicum of phonemes, 
a choir sublime
of sweet voices and sounds.