The days keep breaking, though I wish they wouldn’t,
pale flood of sun breaching the cracked levee of my
restless sleep, washing me out of bed to shut the door.

Then a stag appears, another, the velvet nap of their antlers
gilded by a morning working itself to full glow, asserting
the sort of bright, quiet beauty I'm trying so hard to ignore.

One swivels a cupped ear, cocks his head toward where
I stand rapt at the door, black planet of his eye fixed on
mine, holding us in orbit, and just as I feel my resistance

to the day start to crumble like every brittle dam I build
against this life, he's off, stubbed tail switching up
the street beyond the reach of my naked hope.

The world draws a bead, lays one keen eye on me, weary
and hard-hearted at the dawn of another unbearable day
and I thaw, bear it, stand bare-skinned and quivering

in the doorframe just to love unrequited, hold wanting
in my outstretched palm like a fat apple, offer it up
to anyone who can make me move toward the light.