A yellow sky and still it will not rain.
I calm myself, splash water on my face.
I feel feverishly inane.

This is no city on a hill;
it's Wednesday and I've called off work
to contemplate an almost empty house,
to scrutinize a sleeping pill,
to speculate about a hotel clerk.

Being neither brilliant nor iconoclastic
is difficult to take into account,
I only read and write enough to be sarcastic.
This does not do.
And raging against the bores, shamelessly mediocre,
I must break off, concede that I, too,
have leered with the eyes of a pawnbroker,
gone crooked as a crooked brook
without flood plains, only washed-out banks,
and washed-off hands that gave less than they took.

Sitting on a broken, sinking sofa,
becoming involved with a vine and floral pattern,
losing my breath and clenching my eyelids,
I know that this is how I yearn,
this is how the anxious heart must yearn;
and if I had the peace of Christ, or Tao,
or anything to keep myself away
from that matter of the final when and where and how,
I think I would not burn.

A yellow sky. When a stranger knocks,
I wish he had noticed the empty driveway.
I rent and cannot change the locks.

I wish he thought I had been praying.

He might have asked me if I prayed for money
or goodness, and I could have answered,
"I never pray for goodness. I pray for perfection."
But that didn't happen. He was a painter, who said,
"Well, I'll have to touch up this chipped section,"
as he pointed to the baseboard and the molding.

And it was something very commonplace unfolding,
as he made sure that he wouldn't be a nuisance, asking,
"So tomorrow is ok then? You're sure you don't mind?"
I only mind the yellow sky.
I recognize he made an effort to be kind,
accommodating. But there's the crux; I had to be accommodated,
and that's the sort of thing I've always hated.

Having spent two weeks' wages in as many days,
I miss my filthy lucre. I miss my wellbeing.
I miss my protector, whose love ablaze
is that light which makes this world worth seeing.

I could live rightly, be prosperous and have my health,
but I wait, and that's like the rustic waiting for the river
to run out before he crosses, as Horace said.
I go upstairs and sit down on my bed.
I don't move. Today, even the sky has a sick liver.