& I have been fishing- eating the gore of my futility
with dry stale fingers & licking the wounds

of my palm with my desert - like tongue,
to say, my life is a pond drained of every dewdrop

of happiness. Yet, every night I come to the shore
with my hands cupped like sprawled hips supplicating

for rain. There is a drought in my throat
that kills every prayer even before it is uttered.

There is a land in my stomach diseased with famine
& all that remains are skulls empty of memories

& broken fragments of dreams. Say my body is
a dish on a plate served to hunger & grief.

Say my life stinks of depression & not
even a bath in the bay of my tears will wash me.

Still, every night I return like a moon to the dry river
wanting to see the reflection of hope on my face.

Despair is the substance of things unseen,
the evidence of things un-hoped.