The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
The Dissolution of Perception

Before I hear your knock
or anticipate your arrival
I perch in the shape of waiting
as light bends through layers of wanting.

I grasp at the features of form,
grope for better names
inhale deeply until
reptile noises forego fear for recognition.

The screens of my childhood's windows
rust dustily pinned by crucified fly corpses
remnants of sultry days before I learned to ego flex
then one day I pressed my face too hard into the sunshine.

I sit in the center of an empty life
smile as moments form smoke signs and evanesce
despoiled of wanting to presume,
stripped of a once goosepimpled hirsute.

Even the consideration of cessation
cannot sting what already has faded,
lost its rigor, and sprouted anew,
for I have learned to unsee shadows and
unspin the fabric between seconds.
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