WARMER TOMORROW

I am still not well, but contemplating the chill wind
and my energy-level knowing that if I cut another Kubota-load
of drought-killed oak, limb wood with loosened bark
likely to shed chunks on the carpet on the way to the stove,
I’d feel better—that luxury of choosing what old men want
to do. How I’ve yearned for this status, newly claimed without
a feather-weight of guilt. Calcium clod stuck in my gut
surging with pain and infection, I think about giving-in,
giving-up until the morphine lifts me to unreality, but
before the Norco illuminates dreams of a partial silhouette
chiseled in stone in the paddock behind my hospital bed
while it grows a second head upon a dark Ongole idol,
ears and nose appearing where the tail once was.
I am scared awake to withdraw from this primal energy,
imagery lying deep within my fragile, disconnected
psyche—not knowing, not caring what any of it means.