I live up there
in fast shadows of a top floor
window woman,
pulling black hair from her brush
I’m warned that you don’t live here
by the child
on the stairs who with his shard
of parking lot concrete defends
your pink apartments
& under that night’s bored helicopter I have made
the lunches for tomorrow—
once I dug a grave for someone’s cat—
slack–eyes unheld by thin meteors
of bone that float outside the socket
Always this
gratuitous animal display
of teeth we code as smile, to even have survived
somewhat, freak out in your
sleep on a plane
Days I haven’t slept enough I’m summoned
to the captain who built the house
they took apart
to make the bank of benches at the urgent care
Invisible light, the sun streaming in
to the citadel on stolen horses
His table’s set with wooden steak chops,
plastic peas
He's chewing something small like nuts & nodding,
nodding at his
suffocated embers