“The repetition of my days/ that are alike,/ my days that are not alike.” ~ Nazim Hikmet

A day like any other – Cold for the season, humming

With clouds, strung like accordions Over the ribs of suspended bridges

Tug boats, like hunting dogs, nosing out Passages to the open sea for cargoes

Lifting my head to look through the high windows I sense their absence again occupying that old space

A passing wall of rain over bony nerves, Memories' backwash over the hour's reef

Rain this morning thudding Against my lacerated sleep seemed to plead: “Do not be so distant from this desolate House. Soaked in the humid air, Ink runs from a dream’s gouache of you, Radhika. Kiss me awake again this morning, just as Ash departing into heaven kisses the fire's face”

I just read in North Dakota There is a mad rush underway

For the black gold hidden In the prairie’s belly.

Grapes of Wrath writ in real life. But all the rooms are taken:

Hotel rooms, motel rooms, Trailers, backseats of cars,

Tents, Wal-Mart parking lots, With a serpentine waiting list for everything.

So the Joads are forced to cling, To squat, to brace themselves against

The bone chilling wind and the coal heat In whatever silver of space the body can fit.

How much space does a body need? The heart sometimes feels like this:

Filled with syllables’ black ink but unable To find a stanza’s room to inhabit.