The fog is facile,
is slick. It gutters
the wicks of grass tips.
It might be dirt’s
gray exhalation.
Or the ghost
of this tide—
wave after wave
fisting whitely in.
The chilled breath of it,
antithesis of those days
I lived in chemo’s blaze.
Dumbstruck, mute,

what did I dream?
May’s pestilence
of black flies?
The blatter
of invading grackles?
No, my dreams were
vague, like the fabric of light
frayed, dissipating, and they breathed
through my fever drenched
brain. I was there,
curled at the feet
of an impossible god,
trying to wave, trying,
trying, to hold its gaze.