Trembling Tyler

Trembling Tyler,
he sits
in the center of a living room;
Tyler walks his tremors
into bleached sidewalk
across naked grass
grasping for thick threads
of sun
or wallowing in shade;
Trembling, Tyler
pours ice-water
over etched diamonds of glass;
a sporadic splash
of minute droplets
containing light
interrupts the uniform
of summer heat
covering his forearm.

Feeling deadly, crumpled
but not crushed, his
pulse full of alacrity
and acrid with burnt blood,
barking shins and hooking
sore insoles on hardwood doors,
trapped by the heat
of hot-boxing his own head,
clad only, as ever,
in backdrop black,
a skinny shadow
wades through summer afternoons;
Tyler tries to remember
the last time he wasn't tired.