By Anthony DeGregorio

I passed away the other day, you know, Bud?
Slipped right from this life,
The one I’d been lead—following
For some many years.
And into some sad ongoing sad dream.  Silence.  Dead faces. 
My face, distortion.  Ugly as…, a shit shot of ugly.  LOFuckingL!
                                                                                        How do you text ugly?
Can’t relax or enjoy anything beyond sleep.
And sleeping is not sleep, never restful
Waking up more tired than I went to bed,
or fell to—couch late mid-morning.

In the past, as you of course know well.  You know,
There’s always been a resurrection in sight.
Just out of reach for a few days, maybe a week or so.
But there. There always somewhere!  This time … 
Seems no one is coming to roll back the stone.
I hear no footsteps approaching to move the, the—damn thing!
Find a way out of this bed, leave my SROtomb.

It is so dark in here.  And cold.
I am shivering.  It’s 80 degrees out; nothing warms me up.
The dark seeps in through the cracks like skunk, the smell.
There is no switch to flick for light or heat, friend.
Only a still dead air.
                                   If only a breeze would pick up,
Shake the trees like October, their leaves.  Swirl them in autumn dance.
Color the yards in color; rustle everywhere!  Fill the room with air.
That would signal!  Really mean
A change, someone approaching, right?
Right?  You there?  Hello?

Anthony DeGregorio’s writing has appeared or is scheduled to appear in various publications including Yellow Mama, Yearling, The Raven Review, TheRavensPerch, Libre, Abandoned Mine, Italian America Magazine, Phantom Drift, Aromatica Poetica, Bloom, Nowhere, Wales Haiku Journal, Polu Texni, and So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. He taught writing at Manhattanville College for twenty years, and in another life or two or three he worked in various capacities for the Department of Social Services, much of that time while teaching at night.  Prior to that is anyone’s guess, but don’t let that stop you.