There's hope for me yet

 

Press the compress to my swollen eye

Hanna sleeps soundly on the red couch 

Suzie sleeps soundly on the thick, dark gray blanket filling her round pen 

Wilson sleeps soundly on the black and wood reading chair made in 1958 

I find somewhere else to sit 

I'm an apparition of my former self 

I know what you mean about the penury 

Mine has been of the spiritual variety 

A refrain 

It's been too much for too long 

I was taught we're too good for problems like that 

I was taught to spring from sheen to sheen never stopping 

I was taught it is shameful to suffer 

All I want to do is read and write and bike and garden and walk in the woods 

I keep trying to tell people—

how lonely I am

This, too, is a form of loneliness