Loom

My mother used to give me t-shirts to wear to bed

Too large for the tiny life they contained

They fell about me loose and ill-fitting

Our tomorrow chained to yesterday's quickly disappearing paycheck

The space made room for a me who would one day be too big for yesterday's clothes

On cold nights I could

pull my whole self safe inside and chase sleep away with stories

read by midnight's flashlight glow

A child shrouded in dreams

Oh the places you'll go

These days I write poems

and adorn myself in metered benedictions of my heartbeat

beat beating on the locked doors of yesterday's coffin and tomorrow's missing key

Ill-fitting dreams the one day it will all

Fit right

In the places that the stories kept so warm

Draped around me, spacious

Bespoke passions fashioned for a man much larger than myself

perhaps a promise of space for me to grow