Imagine Sisyphus Happy

Give me tonight to be inconsolable.

so the death drive does not declare

itself, so the moonlight does not convince

sunrise. I was born before sunrise—

when morning masquerades as night,

the temperature of blood, quivering

like a mouth in mourning. How do we

author our gentle birth, the height

we were—were we gods rolling stars across

a sundog sky, the same as scarabs?

We fit somewhere between god

and mineral, angel and animal,

believing a thing as sacred as the sun rises

and falls like an ordinary beast.

Deer sniff lifeless fawns before leaving,

elephants encircle the skulls and tusks

of their dead—none wanting to leave

the bones behind, none knowing

their leave will lessen the loss. But birds

pluck their own feathers, dogs

lick themselves to wound. Allow me this

luxury. Give me tonight to cut

and salt the open. Give me a shovel

to uproot the mandrake and listen

for its scream. Give me a hard face that toils

so closely with stone, it is itself

stone. I promise to enter the flesh again.

I promise to circle to ascend.

I promise to be happy tomorrow.