Whenever, if ever, in the low light assembly
finding new fuel isn’t always practical or easy
It’s enough these days to make out
a few lines in the morning or late afternoon
I know I’m back to writing, but at least it’s back
to writing you     A grisly procedure     How to be aging
on fire    Cracks in the hardcore exterior, a manual
The leaking foundation and the driveway mostly gravel
It’s what’s right in front of me, life at this minute
Blueberries and Bruce Boone’s Century of Clouds
an important book informing these new narrations
this broken book of hours, these dis-illuminations
Blueberries     Nothing inspirited, but everything spirit
And two vigilant adult robins on guard duty
dive-bombing squirrels too close the nest,
dive-bombing cardinals to close the nest
All the planes in the air within us
All the vessels on the ocean within us
Up all night drinking coffee with sea monsters
Then we wake up at noon and have coffee
so we’re sea monsters     It’s no picnic
The west side of the city, the roots of the trees
churning up the sidewalks, the churches
with their bells at ungodly hours and the storm
sirens blaring when I’m trying to tell you
not to worry about the money that we need to fix
the gutter and the dryer, the back door and basement
stairs     It’s always something    And yesterday a phantom
hit my car with its car and didn’t tell me, left no note
with apologies, not to mention no name
and no number, no insurance I could call    The blue jays
roar into my air space screaming    It’s no hardcore,
but it’s better than almost anything it might be
in any place else in the world that we might be
And last night read poems in a boxcar with Chris,
not a real boxcar, but one that sells books
How lucky we are with each other and words
Ate another Reuben to make it a tradition
Then two and a half hours, drove home in light rain
Woke up this morning with Melanie beside me
as most days I have for fourteen years,
fourteen tumultuous and lovely strange years
The endless days and nights and days
I know they’re gonna end someday
But I don’t need to tell you that
I would do better to show you my face
Happiness is written where I write this

*

Matt Hart is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless (Typecast Publishing, 2012) and Debacle Debacle (H_NGM_N Books, 2013). A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and plays in the band TRAVEL.