Lately waking at an indeterminate hour, 
I know no one’s looking for me. 

I could walk across a bridge & back
or burrow in, king of my oscillating 

fan. Minutes sag like low branches 
in snow. I’m taking my adulthood slow, 

like medicine. Arranging flowers in a vase 
is something nice to do for yourself, 

that color rush, serotonin spike, even if 
they won’t survive the week. The cut stems 

stripped of function, the smaller griefs
in that. Like how my niece at night stands 

in her crib refusing sleep, eyelids fluttering
open, closed. Soon, all the world’s 

nieces will be old enough to want another 
earth, a second chance, as we warm 

by degrees. We’re at a boil now, over-
flowing with want. These are trying times. 

But time’s trying, asking us to stay awhile
longer inside the length of this moment.