Since you were not Hume's sunrise
I watch the late-May moonrise alone
and a nicotine trance assures me
that summer is coming, and the arrival

of painted toenails; that at last
I truly understand aubades
and James Stewart's vacant hospital gaze
after his wits have vanished with his love;

that the transmigration of bruises
from skin to spirit brings about
such splendid depths of character
you'll drop a dime and never hear a sound.

Clouds race across the moon's pale face.
I have character to spare, it is

no comfort; I will write us down,
making nothing happen, it won't repair
this ache of failed induction, these eye
that live for sunlight, though the sky stays dark.