Laurie Saurborn
Recovery

No one makes a profit from a remedy
That cuts the high from the synapse so it’s hard
To see how we are rising up in this vast
Spinning down. Sometimes lightning
Slips from my hand; nightly the man next door
Yells fuck you at his mother. Before and after,
The ambulance. Before and after, his daughter
Singing on the landing while my dog
Bays at the door. Anticipating holiday lights
At my father’s house I circled three times & found
Only a thin blue glow in the curtains’ break.
Darkest house on the block.
Largest shadow in the shadow.
Before and after the manse, the copse,
Heathcliff clawing at the window until
The dream explodes over the heathered moors.
Every night the moon alights its crumpled face, somewhere.
In marriage I admitted him; he stood on the table & railed
While the satellites fell to pieces at our feet.
Full lotus, wheel, then practice for life
As a corpse before and after the day lifts
To see if anything will change
In this gap between the earth and its star.