Preamble

What I remember is that the piano was the only thing
I wanted to take with me. There wasn’t much
else clear about that year. Icicles were intent
on piercing through the heart of winter,
but kept colliding with some concrete porch
or another. An appetite for the divine
was always force fed. In January
I went on wishing for a new cosmology that didn’t rely
on worn-in sneakers and holiday place settings
all year round. There would be a second coming
in May, but in the meantime
everything was a preamble, and no one
was happy with what was not spoken of, and everyone
saw archangels in their apple-trees,
perched on bare branches smoking Djarum Blacks.