When I woke
I felt fine for a minute.
Set the table, saw myself
rise and go. First rise
and stand holding
the table. Then sit
again. Then go. Start
to go.
Motionless pines
we’d built stirred.
Blind October
inching up. No wife
raising hell
when she came. Empty
or almost empty beast.
Bear down. Bad heart.
Adam Day is the recipient of a 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award, and author of Badger, Apocrypha. His work has appeared in the Boston Review, Lana Turner, APR, Poetry London, AGNI, The Denver Quarterly, Guernica, and elsewhere. He coordinates the Baltic Writing Residency in Latvia and Scotland.