Ashes Of A Day

Ashes Of A Day

Already, the day is in my hands

though it's not yet broken free of the night.

Fragmented and fractured at the crack of dawn.

All of it crumpled like ash on my palm,

before it's even begun.

A day lodged whole in the oesophagus 

A start slapped to the finish line like an unhedged bet.

Nothingness riding the body like a fever

Mercury rising in thermometer veins, like hysterical laughter.

*********