I’m under-occupied when they show up,
Most times—these premonitions of…of what?
Of never getting what I haven’t got?
Of never drinking from the winner’s cup?
Of never being named Best This, Most That?
Of letting down my children, and their mom?
They come with truths, and with half-truths they come,
These auguries; though inarticulate,
They speak in feelings, hot, and cold, and sweaty,
Smothering till I cannot fill a lung,
Till I remembered to let go, and clung
To nothing but the animating beauty.
I saw the terror steadily, and whole:
A sticky, rolling brown-out of the soul.