Sheets will be fresh, unwrinkled when I fold myself alone into the middle of the bed.
Under the morning sky as it lights by degrees, clouds become visible, blushing pink,
distinct from the domed sky behind, I am tucked in
my smallness, the existential angst of being both sides of conversation, is smoothed,
the attentive masseuse who kneads the knots and furrows, strokes impersonal love,
the scent of agape inhaled and pressed into my pores, my anima restored not by being
chosen, precious, not even special, but by opening eyes I did not select, expanding
the lungs which bellow without will, distinguishing breath from not-breath,
sheets from shroud. I’m not yet dead, I am gloriously granted another moment
to be the not-breath to the seven crows in the uppermost branches of the pine
I watch from the not-me balcony, the not-breath to the hummingbird at the
not-me feeder, roll my not-me shoulders up and back and down as I release
the tension of the not-breath body, watch black ink form not-breath words
I will later mistake for me on the page.