I have been on a string of so many days
hung low. The truth is I am
often tired of being alive, of daylight
streaming through the translucent glass
of my body, my virgin rebirth, discarded
diamonds. I am the water in fountains
people dance past.

These days weave together
on a loom, an unfinished tapestry
with a repeating pattern: spoiled wool,
dank, with rare flashes of gold.
The truth is I am often tired
of being alive, though I know this mantle
can unravel with a pull on a thread.

I trudged up concrete steps
into the Art Museum, muscles sobbing
with repetition, this desire to rise
above the carved marble of my heart
pushing me inside another air-conditioned
hallway, where winged statuaries ushered
me up, up, up, hushed

into the darkened gallery. Shush,
whispered metal brush on cymbals,
the drummer on one screen of nine,
each in a…