If you dream your mouth rattling
with loose teeth, take a cold shower.
If you dream swimming naked in a pool
as it begins to fill and fill with flotsam,
wake up and scrub the grime from your skin.
In other words: do whatever will keep Death
away for one more day. If it means drinking
a foul-tasting mix of apple cider vinegar
laced with ginger and turmeric, so be it.
If it means forgiving the difference
between someone else’s adventurous, back-
packing life and your circumscribed one
on shore, so be it. Rejoice when the lawn
maintenance guys finally come around
to prune the ragged tree and take away
its overgrowth of limbs. Rejoice
that the moon is visible over the fence,
that a startled rabbit bounds across the path;
that the asphalt you stand on hasn’t melted,
and the air isn’t completely toxic with lies.
In response to Via Negativa: All heart.