In/carnation by Stephen Jackson

When I woke, the words swarmed

like bees abuzz with what it was

my mind worked through the night

before, in dreams and subconscious

matters, in smatterings of truth or

illusion, in light and sound recalled

only vaguely hanging on — after

two cups of coffee and three or four

cigarettes, the mind forgets as the

body wakes to take on the day —

delusional, dark and silent it walks

away from the colors that played

in sensual sun, where meaning and

being hung in the balance, while

trapped for eight non-existent hours

in the flower that I previously was.

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Stephen Jackson lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest, where he loves communing with nature. Other recent work appears in The American Journal of Poetry, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Impossible Archetype, Cypress Press, Line Rider Press, One, and Wine Cellar Press. He is powered by vegetables. Twitter: @fortyoddcrows