Christmas Morning, 1997
Thank you lord for my wind-up heart
two billion beats from most models
no guarantees
Definitely no returns
Thank you lord for my ration of blood
eight pints that drive and join us
the inland sea that laps
upon our bodies’ beaches
Our humanity
is a coast we should explore
Thank you for winter days
at the seaside
Thank you lord for one more day
another ragged line of heartprints
on the sand
my drunkard’s walk
towards you or away
Thank you lord for looking
out for me
drunk with flesh obstinately asleep
for littering my path with obstacles
any one of which
might wake me up
Beat by beat
I doze in the drowned boat of my flesh
dreaming and drifting
Oh lord
let something in my path
awaken me