You are reading Fiddleblack #7
A bad night. His clutch misses
the doorknob. He’s swiping,
ghosts for limbs,
ether for marrow.
Mirage for tongue and teeth
when his mouth tries
a quadriplegic grip.
He’s lost too much
weight walking unaware.
Clock buttons won’t depress.
One thirty-seven now, no
skipping ahead to the alarm
Michael Walsh is the author of The Dirt Riddles, winner of the Miller Williams Prize in Poetry, as well as the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. His chapbooks include Adam Walking the Garden and Sleepwalks. His poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chattahoochee Review, DIAGRAM, New York Quarterly and other journals.