POETRY BY BRINSON LEIGH KRESGE

Before Coffee

En toute action pense à la fin

Our bed ceased

speaking in your absence, but now creaks

under the weight of change—desire—

driving revisions like late morning

dream fragments

that decline meaning. That gnawing

need that steeped pre-sleep

hollows,

misplaced; my tucked arm aches

under her body weight. I see now—

last night’s storm-thrashing

river birch fractured

what was whole; the windowpane

cracks lifelines where smooth

potential had been framed. Clarity

creeps in like a specter

until I stand at the sill

with cold hands and naked legs—

splinters in the new-day’s glare. Outside,

my live oak flaunts still-full limbs

raised in prophecy, a garish reach

across the hushed, leaf-littered street.

A frayed maple relents

at its feet. And at mine,

light-stained boards run back into bed

where sheets surrender what could become

familiar skin. Recast—

yet again, there is no freedom

from the demands of flesh, always

obeyed, even in denial; and I’m still,

lamenting the inevitable, burnt toast

to mixed sky goodbyes. In the alley,

the debris truck approaches,

gravel grumble and lurch,

impervious to the newly laid waste.