When you make promises you can’t keep,
fold them into a kind of origami, red birds, blue frogs,
arranged around your crown as sentinel jewels.
Pretty things, still nothing more than paper,
and air. Promise to be a better person tomorrow.

Promise to be a better person, tomorrow,
drink your fill of tears while you still have the stomach for it.

Promise to be a better person tomorrow,
and the sun will come up again through the windows caked
with dirt.

Dig yourself out of a shallow grave, tomorrow. Clear away
the debris from the porch of a sunken house, tomorrow,
and open the door. Walk outside the brick-and-mortar
body into the clear, bright cold, tomorrow.
Promise to be a better person, tomorrow. Promise
things to yourself, things to others. Rip vertical lines
down dreams and notions, weave the ragged strips
or glue together crinkling chains of them,
tomorrow.

Promise to be a better person, tomorrow. With your
jagged teeth, tear raw gobbets off the night, tonight.
But promise to be a better person, tomorrow.