I brought out my mixer pans and reached into the pantry
but I had robbed myself of cornmeal.
I had sprinkled it on the ground of some reality
the last one did not acknowledge.
I had passed out all my cookies to someone
who doesn’t like chocolate
and forgotten to go back to the store.
I went to put up the pictures I had gotten for my living room
but the tacks were all bent and useless.
pushed too hard with the wrong angles
plastic chipped off the colors that used to give me hope.
My hammer wouldn’t do me any good.
I stayed up all night with a flashlight,
Checked it now and so to make sure the batteries still worked.
When it came, I didn’t expect it to be like that,
gray and shallow, a shade across the wall,
my dulled blue eyes barely recognizable.
I flew on the torch