VIRGIL SUAREZ
ATMOSPHERIC
Every night I go to bed here in Austin
so far from family and when I remove
my glasses the ceiling turns into constellations
of sparkling lights. Tonight is the night, I say
to myself, everything ends: the irregular beats
of my heart, its murmur audible on the pillow.
This whir and skips of arrhythmia, clap
of some distant drum, out there beyond
my heart, beyond this body, falling apart.
In another galaxy surely somebody lies
on his back, gives up the ghost of this haunting--
out there: a wife, a couple of lovely
daughters living on, away from the longing
of my hands, hands that clutch a heart
too weak to survive the furies of the distances
between the living and the dead, a wakefulness
from which exists no escape, no surrender.
Awake in Austin, night, a heart sings its rapture.