Addictions
The dark only a little haggarded by my moving through it
in the first minutes of waking,
bringing some sleep along,
my eyes adjusted, half-open, half-shut,
half-knowledge,
routine and whole.
There is only me only these steps of mine, these paths
burrowed through the still-dark,
no abysses around.
I make these ragged cycles—
the cup, the pill, the rocking chair
rocking toward the warm core
here already,
my treadle working nothing
more and more.
Allen Strous is the author of Tired (The Backwaters, 2009) and one of the authors of The Fifth Voice (Toadlily, 2006). His poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, and others.