CALL ME BELOVED

I won’t cry out to the cosmos to think of me,
my vanity has bled away over the decade
and washed out of myself, and I know that
I alone am the arbiter of my own happiness.

this doesn’t stop the haunting melancholy
that prods me awake at night, that I wish
the cosmos could pay some bit of attention
to the struggles in the word – the reason
I still listen rapt to hymns, bow my head
and cross myself passing ambulances –
why my wish of wishes is that there was
somebody paying attention, an underlying
beauty for the senselessness that tints my view.