Tuesday Poem: "Husk"

You are desperate for something left over

after all life’s betrayal and loss
to have the paraphernalia of happiness caress you

and whisper nocturnal conversations about the tenderness

shown to you by strangers,

but awfulness has been grist to you,

not merely the curiously sick substitutes for tragedy,

but the endless great sadness
that cleans the marble benchtops

and keeps the debtors’ wolves

from the door of your psychiatrist.