Support is a Handrail above the Head of a Toddler

Not with this self pasted like Civil War newspapers

To these sniffling bones too tired to crack or sore

Have I kissed one comfort

To anyone (but especially this one)

Incapable of looking at a goddamn elbow

And not feeling that futurity

Holds our eyedust in what must be

That non-elasticity and inability to bend—

   which is all that water and we,

           in eyeglasses and cups,

have ever smashed fisticuffs against.

Nor as bodies might be handrails

Is there support for just touch

    While running hands are

                                           slipping feet.

There must be some rightplaned curvature

To fit what we grip,

                                 and rails

like hope, its sisterbrother despair,

must not be so wide and spill out our hands.

At night

            below the trainwhistle

I can hear our graves stifle

           a unanimous yawn;

we spilled our grain among the headstones.