THE STICK

even when I stand
revealed
in a new field
of sunshine

the hissing singleness
of things
                       attacks me

therefore is
always the bright
excessive problem
of myself
                clawing
at evening
out of craters
in glazed
battlefields
or flalling back
from my white
vicious face
in the bathroom
mirror
           (falling
back from her
glinting
with anger
on the soiled bed

who knotted
the sheets about
                      her, shrieking
“Why did you do that to her?”
and shot her fist out
like a hammer

What had I done?
What had I done?

I cannot remember
anything
                       but fighting
the black sinewy body
of loneliness
and guilt
             and walls
   funneling down
to a small window
of gray light)

falling 
like tissue
thru backyards
or white bark
off birches
blown
over the fences
thru rotted grass
in early March

falling
like a stick
into an old field
of sunshine