Fierce Encouragement
after Patrick Rosals Despedida Ardiente

Come feverish sufferers, kindred spirits, you sick-at-heart

considering

care, catch any momentary thread, chance of solace. Catch it like

a big

fish on the line! Allow. You have no guarantee, sure, but

peaches

ripen in the quiet under still leaves. I promise the walls of your

home

will stand when you leave the house. Bring your corrosive guilt,

evidence

of wrongs, all the why nots, craft your case: imperfection,

disappointment,

disloyalty. Let all those creaky mornings, times when you can’t

stand yourself, be known.

You have already asked yourself, me, the moon and the tarot

card reader

a thousand times what to do. The only answer: Get out of your

fucking car

and come inside. Drag your cringing, curdle showers of shame

if they won’t cut loose. Write your dreams on a ticker tape like

morse code.

The world can be a better partner than the silence of your cave.

Crack the sky

with your pronouncement. You are singing for humanity.