THE SIN OF SLOTH

Yesterday, the alarm went off, and I could see I'd overslept. I was asleep,

dreaming, stretched out in a mess. Almost missed

my exam. Yelled, “Fucking Jesus Christ” like I expected

the Man Himself to answer from the foot of the bed.

Was asleep when fog stretched out along the street

and the lamps made a halo in the greyness, the opposite of a shadow --

the Man hanging moons on the street right above our heads --

I was asleep, except at 5 am, when a sudden surge lifted me ...

Was better than dawn – mystical, intimate, just us in the grey.

Only stared for a minute, then hobbled off to piss and back to bed.

Missed half an exam. And dreaming of what, exactly?

Don't remember; maybe I just dreamed of staring for that minute

or maybe of the bathroom light, ugly and hard and mean,

or maybe of the show I was missing, imagining the exam not taken.

Or maybe I dreamed an incarcerated man, maybe I dreamed a man

like the smoking skeleton of a volcano, ugly and hard and mean,

sleeping away his nights and days, full of alarms that alert nothing

reading books that have seen better, avoiding mirrors, dreaming

of covering Pompeii with his lava and ash, his years of potential lost.

Alarms that alert nothing. Kurt's waited tables, nights and days,

for ten years straight; been saying he would quit for five. Grumbling,

flicking his cigarette ash like a skittish horse, about his potential lost

and parole officers and nickel bags and this week is really the last.

He does lines in the bathroom at work, sometimes, gets high

tells us stories: passing out on docks, Mardi Gras, this week is really the last.

Kurt pulls in two hours late, red eyes, dry mouth – I can see he's overslept.

Maybe I dreamt of evening in a moastery, I dreamt

a man in a well-starched collar, swinging incense up the tower steps

while someone tugs the ropes of huge brass bells, and someone

is first into the chapel to pray. The stragglers, those last to their knees,

miss the beginning of the daily incantations, missing

the beginning of the prayer – maybe they slept through the bells.

Yesterday I overslept, while the Man himself

leaned over the edge of my bed, and yelled,

“Come'n'get it!” He had a dinner bell in one hand, and

a sickle in the other.