I'm learning to abandon the world.
I am learning to abandon the world before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon and snow,
closing my shades against the claims of white.
And the world has taken my father, my friend.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat tuneless landscape.
And every night I give my body up limb
by limb, working upwards across bone towards the heart.
But morning comes with small reprieves
of coffee and birdsong.
A tree outside the window, which was simply shadow moments ago,
takes back its branches twig by leafy twig.
And as I take my body back, the sun
lays its warm muzzle on my lap as if to make amends.