We wake early—3:00,
4:00, 5:00 A.M.
James lives off FDR
where roads, sidewalks,
desire lines lie quiet.
Tom hopes to find another
livelihood, but arranges flowers
in an outdoor shop. I set
five pills upon a stand:
one a lily-white diamond;
one a capsule half buttercup,
half-rust; the remaining three
bachelor-button blue, oblong.
I must take four of five with food;
a piece of bread sits among them,
a glass of water, and, sometimes,
a book of poems I”ll read
if work is light today. My necktie slows
the time it takes to swallow.
Still lifes. Arrangements. Keeping
current. So many things take time:
Tom waves away a wasp;
James finds a bench to sit
and read. These pills take time:
Billy, Roger, Dallas…
died without them.

Someone erects an easel
to paint a portrait of James
on his bench. Tom decides
this vase is done, finished.
Outside my bedroom window
there’s a small cemetery with many trees.
Twigs cross-hatch the sky.
Leaves escort a breeze.
I hear clucks, crows
(a neighbor keeps
chickens, roosters).
A bachelor-button blue
slips in my bath:
the pigment of a slow dissolve.