From a Mouth in California (Daylight Savings Version)

Today my morning run felt awful until I was almost finished, and

this is also the sentence in which I admit that I never once consid-

ered going any farther.

Later, when asked to participate in a thought experiment regarding

preferences for my own demise, I chose a cause of death that in-

volves neither panic nor pain, though this may well mean both have

set in.

I’ll say this much: right now I’m pulling apart a tangerine, and

wherever and whatever these clouds were before they were here

feels irrelevant in light of my having only now realized that I’d ex-

pected something better from the sky.

That, and I’d like more from this minor wind and the leaves it acti-

vates, two sounds that seem to just catch in me briefly and die.

I let my face come open at jokes.

I let my pulse bump me slowly into sleep.

Sometimes I dream I’m playing a video game based on a movie in

which I’ve been chased.

Hurry down, function—there’s still sun on me.

Pain or panic I believe in I can taste.