Small Change

The night is tired
when pain of past
suffocates the waking hours,
as if all the power
of the world is captured
in the breadth of memory.

We cannot see the way
to know if anything is right
when what was once
emerges from the years
of doing what they said
you should, when trying
seemed a barker's game--
toss a wooden hoop
like hope onto a dream
that never fits

all the way. Not enough
to win the big prize,
just a token in the hands,
a gimcrack consolation,
second best.

Punch the pillow needing
something, maybe only rest
to rock you through the ticking
until dawn.

It matters not.

Belief is not the dreaming,
change is simply moving on.