I’ve spent this year
suspended in heat, a slowness
that pulls me toward a wreck.
The kitchen sink is
stacked with dishes I don’t
remember having.
The drain collects
rust like memories and here I’m
counting pills again
as if they were coins—
a gospel I can
swallow with water and candor.
I fold myself into
my mattress and it swallows me,
no wretchedness left behind.
I am the villain
in this story, here to kiss
the empty sky.
Here is a smile
from an old friend. Here is
the wolf sleeping
under my bed.
No pill can cure
what isn’t there—
my illness is a mystery
but no man
will ever need to suffer
a limp dick.
Give me better answers
when the state
condemns me to my
inconvenient body—
my body just
swirling down the drain.
I should wear a ring
of rosemary around my waist.
I count pills again
as if they were bullets,
put them in my mouth,
lips sore from
kissing the wall. Kissing
the water. Kissing my last dollar.
I’m not supposed to
have these headache pills
but I always have a headache.
I tear down the ceiling
and reach for the rafters,
stand tall to taste the open sky.
In this bed I let my pills
fall around me like perfect rain—
a blessing I allow myself,
a church for
when the stairs fail me
when I’m buried in the horror
of pavement
and underbrush when
the water leaps
from the river to remind
me that I am still breathing
that I am still
waking from the fever
in which I am only my blood.
I’ve spent this year
suspended in heat, a slowness
I’ve spent this year
suspended in heat, a slowness