Poem with No “Real” Assets

Absinthe, flavored with anise— Van Gogh's cafe table,
         bordered with windowframes, looks out on the street.
                   Carafe of water, but no spoon or sugar cube in sight.
Did he drink it undiluted; no sharing, on his own?
        Every morning I rise from a mattress that's seen better days.
                   Flame-leaved, the light this time of year; or milky—
glass in which the green liqueur settles toward the bottom.
         Harbor is still a state I aspire to. Or home. Not that
                    I haven't worked hard to make one here; but there's
just no word to describe the condition of a kind of statelessness,
          knowing you can't put your name on a title for a piece of
                    land, here or in any there. You shell out the nearly 2 grand
mortgage monthly, tell yourself it's not all going down the drain;
          not too shabby to now be part of that demographic 
                    of first-time "homeowners," though your 3BR, 2BR +
patio has no garage, only a gravel driveway. There's no
           question the bank still owns it, keeps a tight
                    rein on this semblance of The American Dream.
Someday, perhaps, you'll figure it out—
           the way others seem to have gamed it, gracefully and
                     unscathed. But that painted prism of green spirit, 
veins of stippled light going through every surface—
           Wasn't that what you really wanted? Time to carve
                      xylographs, rub their surfaces with dense color, 
yield nothing to whatever warps the dream. You run a quiet
           zipper around these thoughts, tending them carefully.

https://morningporch.com/2022/11/159129628/