A Wake Up Call

A Wake Up Call

It’s that blurred feeling of fear
That creeps into you
Waking up in bed alone
At dawn, thinking, this is unreal
Living by myself, surrounded by
Neighbors in the sleepy first-light
Of morning, that must be

Someone else in a catatonic
Fog trying to focus his eyes,
Stretching his stiff aching body
Over the bed, thinking, this
Can’t be real, waking to the birds
With the other neighbors, slowly levatating
To percolate coffee with the hardiest
Early morning risers, yearning

To be somewhere else, wishing
That I was anywhere else but here,
An old man looking in on himself, as if
From another planet,
Flipping the switch on the pot, smelling
The coffee, waiting for the early news

Feeling himself sliding downhill
In a sluggish stupor, looking past
Years wired in the memory’s hard drive
Years which seem hauntingly blank
And odd,
and abruptly thinking
With a new rush of queasiness
This isn’t real, waking in this place
Feeling as if I were about to decompose

In the desert heat, that must be
Someone else, staring out

At his elderly neighbors, on a normal day,
Which begins like every other day
With a man waking in an empty bed,
Feeling himself alone and trying
Not to fade away

On the final leg of the journey
When the fruit and the sweet-red wine
Seem to ripen under a pale moon
And the heart fills up with delight