Lately when arthritis wakes me in the night
I imagine it is the universe
Carving secrets into my bones.
That my skeleton is blazing
With esoteric knowledge
Etched within me in a language
I cannot quite yet read:
My sternum flares as I discover the weight
Of unstruck lightning
Pressing upon my chest.
Swollen knuckles are marked with tiny runes
Which detail the strength
It takes to cling to summer.
And every glyph-scored vertebrae
Clicks and cracks
In morse-code sympathy
With the radio waves of dying stars.
It makes it easier to lie there
Racked in the indigo muzzle of the night
If I can pretend that someday
Everything that this agony imparts
Will finally
Become beautiful.