The body can process and possess the dark
(you are covered lightly in fine hairs) but the mind
won’t stop making metaphors
until you take its hammer and tongs away.
These are religious themes, they remind you
you’re one knot in the rope of time
and a slide over the gunwale is natural
as slumping in a chair. You’re driving,
not drunk yet, so you begin to wonder
who sails all these white boats in the harbor
instead of simply watching as they bob.
Regardless of the hour or the whiskey,
you’ll scratch your way back into your body
with the morning, assuming you don’t succumb
to fever dreams and shed your claws in sleep.