Sitting near a cold spring night
I write with an overhead light 
to pierce the slitherly dark thoughts
that slide through the eves
pour from under the doors
steal through foundation cracks
to pry from me my genius –
wary words wrestling their way
through my years, each with promise and loss
the same – of life – given and taken away.

Of the words that might have come
these have come, forming themselves
in scribbles of black on white
to say that I am, one line at a time,
not my own but one written
on a page (what page?) by a hand (whose?)
I seek to know, hope to capture
by poem in its webby tangle of words
woven out of what darkness slitherly brings.

Portland, Oregon – March 27, 2018