in the morning

It’s nearly morning
The sun climbs its invisible cord and slats the walls between the blinds, but barely so. You rise softly, so as no to wake your son sleeping beside you. You creep into the bathroom and then unfold the white piece of paper you keep in the medicine cabinet – beautiful brown powder more expansive and warm than a woman’s tropical embrace. Acrid fluff and three quick snorts. Cold palmful of water, then move to the silent living room. Eyelids drop and rise like nets returning an empty bounty. Windows surround you in accusation, yet look how beautiful the world is: Evening’s dull slate polishes itself raw into the bone of morning, and a neighbor’s stand of purple iris crowns past its own inevitable sweetness as the sunlight dials in. Grope at your T shirt under this weather of sobbing indifference and prepare the wilted air or something important. Breathe in. But who are you kidding –there is lush to be had, great purity of heartswoon. Settle onto the couch and pick up the novel your wife was reading last week, before she left. The couch begins to silver into a plume of deep rushing. Eyelids again start closing and your chest is warmly filled. The book slips from your fingers – in another time, you hear its quiet thump against your breastbone. Then a doorknob twists and a portal is crossed, small feet drumming the wood floor, but far away, like thunder falling through distant clouds. “Daddy, where’s breakfast?” The words sour your face and you want nothing of language. He breathes expectantly on you and you try willing him away. He places his hand on yours. All those ondulations brailled across your heart start their terrible unhooking, goodbye they call, goodbye. You can’t bear any of it. “I’m hungry, daddy. Please”. As you keep your eyes shut, you see your own father. Before he waved to everyone eating in the grass on a red and white tablecloth near the trestle. Before he jumped. He fell soundlessly as a picture of pile into the running car. As you sidled past, he rubbed your back as if searching for wings. You continue to lie on the couch. Your son does not move. You both do not move. And as the sunlight fully undresses across your face, your eyelids grow warm, then brighten, and you can finally see all the colors of your dreams.
Christopher Locke