Around the time when earthly pinks and pearl

had been drained from the sky and the crows rose

in their trees to caw gray into the world

I stirred in nightmare, in sodden nightclothes,

in that sick sweat I get when pneumonia

curls cute in my lungs. I type in a fog

while in bed, one fingered, the nostalgia

of lust both heavy and out of reach. “Flog

a dead horse,” you text back. “Lust is all that

you write about.” Perhaps. These new gray days

of crow caws and ice match my libido.

Who do I turn to? Even my tomcat

retreats. Once I called lust prayer and could praise

pleasure. Now it’s less grace and more deathblow.