II


1

Hours, clouds, ghosts
merge.

The life I saw all about
me, not human. There are orders
of beings.

I am incompetent, stupid. How
should a man work when a demon has walked
beside him?

I
do not admit
it, do
not continue
so.

2

I often find it bitter,
too severe to hold
a fiction of their order
that others taught.

Too simple to receive some version
of their order. Leave it.

The foulest of
all those I glimpsed
in the muster
circled once, blew fire.

Not
deliberate.
Stupid, mediumistic:
cancel.

3

How could I not waste myself,
not willing to turn into fire,
coil myself
to join those I glimpsed
mustering in the heat.

Haze hedge.

So tired of being their medium.
How the fuck am I to offer myself,
not willing?