“The Disintegration of Adam,” oil on canvas, Darwin Leon.
(See also “Chain Smoking” by Rae Pagliarulo.)

The old childhood fears come
Back to you before sleep, a nothingness

Where you can’t see your hands
In front of your face.
The past is elastic
And receptive to your touch, you
Try to mold it into the shape of birdsong,
But it always disintegrates to the music of what
Happened. This house of grief is built out

Of silence and rain and glass,
And the six a.m. light still hangs itself in
Golden loops on the wall. The vowels of the
River in you are clear and
Sweet; they congeal into something like a
Lament. It has never seemed so sad, nor
so beautiful, to be alive as today.

Matthew Gasda is a poet living in Brooklyn, NY. His first book of poetry, The Humanist, is available through Amazon and select bookstores.