A Deer Will Circle Me Three Times

I.
I am thinking of sorrow
the big kind,
the crawling on all fours
through the dirt,
the house of hammers.
maybe there is such
thing as light
maybe it is spring
somewhere else
on the other side
of the earth, or on
a different earth.
the cup is so familiar
the distance, a blurred
Polaroid. if I were
a bear they'd shoot me.
the sky is a severe
hand, there is no
sea to shipwreck
honorably in.
maybe you know
this, or maybe it's just
a whisper, a thing
you turn up the music
against. the thing
about liferafts is
they're built for one;
the thing about desert
islands is you share
them with sand.

II.
I try to conjure
my grandfather and
grandmother in vain.
the Ouija board tells
me no one is home
in the switchhouse
of the dead.

III.
in my car
the houses I pass
look like unreal
advertisements.
I will orbit all
night, arriving
on the doorstop
I set out from.

IV.
optimists
don't kill themselves.
we burn right here,
under the eyes
of a living god,
reincarnated as goats
or worse without
having to die first.

V.
if, as Gibran said, Hell
is governed by those
who do not yield to
fire, then am I
a tourist?

VI.
​tonight the crickets
will make a bed for me
from the black cloth
of night, and a deer will
circle me three times.
if there is a moon
it will look the other way.
the least of my prayers--
for sleep, for sunrise--
will be enough;
In the morning
I will repeat them
to make them stick.