Poem: Locked In

Locked In

Dreamed of chasing the sun across the British Empire,
a cartographer of ancient imperialism,
but I failed history and took up road-tripping
California to Illinois until I was waysided by Reno.
Slowly the world enclosed on me, victim of debt, harried by lawyers.
If only I could pay enough to find a better job,
leave this state without calling the parole officer
without the restraining order
without thinking of the kids or the money or where I would start
without the failures, the mother on dialysis, the heroin,
just to see a coast again, a seagull, a fish, an untamed ocean
before a series of strokes takes my right side,
and my left, my eating, my face, my words,
leaving only eyes which cannot even close properly.
Every morning, the student comes,
I see his eyes a pity, a misunderstanding,
a question of how I escape these walls
how imagination persists and sustains.