I Am Out Of Practice At Living.

I See Myself As One Would See Another. I Have Been Cut In Two.

Despite My Asbestos Gloves, The Cough Is Filling Me With Black, And A Red Powder Seeps Through My Veins.

I Lay There Silently, Hoarding My Small Dignity. I Did Not Ask About The Gate Or The Closet. I Did Not Question The Bedtime Ritual Where, On The Cold Bathroom Tiles, I Was Spread Out Daily And Examined For Flaws. I Did Not Know That My Bones, Those Solids, Those Pieces Of Sculpture Would Not Splinter.

I Sit At My Desk Each Night With No Place To Go, Opening The Wrinkled Maps Of Milwaukee And Buffalo, The Whole U.s., Its Cemeteries, Its Arbitrary Time Zones, Through Routes Like Small Veins, Capitals Like Small Stones.

What's Missing Is The Eyeballs In Each Of Us, But It Doesn't Matter Because You've Got The Bucks, The Bucks, The Bucks.