sometimes curtains blocking sunlight
are only ghosts    sometimes ghost   light
in windows only a brightness beyond
the blue bridge   I work beneath   only
the bridge will lift us over the Allegheny
only the bridge will float us into the grit
of the city the people I used to know
I don’t know them anymore    what is
a bed but unmade sheets   soft   silk
I must become a bridge    to get
myself out of bed in   morning sunlight
beyond the ghosts of days
I used to possess   I was
a curtain blocking the trajectory
of my own light

(originally published in indicia lit, Spring 2022)