Now That I’m Older

by Daniel Felsenthal

art by Alfred Stevens, 1888

Morning dreams
Of a swollen hour
What’d you smoke,
Who’d you do?
Time as a unit of distance,
In which it is
In so many ways, used.
Walk cul-de-sacs
Just to stay still, energetically:

Bar with light slatted
Through door
Sun hiding behind
So much blue
Bed risen with sound:

Last night’s snack
Is still being enjoyed
Somewhere
In your body.

Drunk went from childhood prophecy  
To grown-up feeling   

All before you opened
Your right eye.
That one’s tough,
Often crusty.

Mornings should have
No consequences
For being.

Just be. Remember
Who we are:
         Artists
Sleeper cells in
Restless times
Plotting revolution
Between our exposed
shoulder’s cold
And the arms we
Hang over our bedsides
To check
Our phones.

Awakenings are called rude
For a reason.
                           

Was I? Let me think:
         Honest
At best, but know
It was not about you. Never you.
When I stand, it’s two.
I’m one again.
Doo-da-doo.

So much blue
That while sleeping was
Like all the tea in China!
Or Oil in Arabia
Has become rare
Today and to waste it on another metaphor
Would be villainous. Nostalgically so.

Slide from sheets, the sky grey.
Funny thing about
Vampirism is while the world gets older
You stay the same age.

*This Poem Was Originally Published in Print in The Exacting Clam, Winter 2023

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