The judge of my most missing secret / gifted me a tome by a man who’d died, / poems on being a man, being white, / being from our country’s seceding side.

1:28 am./ I’ve taken Ambien every day this week. On Tuesday a quarter tab,/ by Thursday, a half. My pillow bucks. Crows peck the skylight& the moon’s a neon fog. My love breathes through his mouth—flaming a fire./ I close my eyes to the smoke but sparks remain.

Before I clocked 14, I lost three lives.

At night I think about what happens after. Where the body goes. When you return this body, I think you are to make a list of all the strange wears and tears it has weathered. Perhaps an instructional record for engineers on how to mend this sheath for the next user. Or for research on how to improve our bodies, so that the next models will not experience the same ailments.

A toilet is a place, too, like a seaside resort or a centuries-old city is a place. A visit to a toilet bears recounting, too.

Today begins with the beautiful / green eyes of the Gestapo /
officer. He looks /
at you & you look