Sometimes, when the day’s frenzy
erects false shrines to necessity,
an inner scream crescendos
and all sensibility vanishes

taking with it what’s left
of the meditation classes,
time management guides
and lavender lotion.

It happens, this misalignment,
this conformity to chaos,
and like a bullet to the nerves
splinters me.

I take a walk along a road
grizzled with dry stalks
and ripe apples beginning
to drop from untended trees.

Near meadow’s edge a deer grazes
on fruit, stops and meets
my stare at that juncture when
the thread pulls taut between bone and dust.

From In from the Dark (Antrim House, 2014).
Used here with the author’s permission.