America

I’m showering under the drainage pipe

body naked in the frigidity of the night

bare as black as wind cutting

my forearms

it’s a sort of melody

playing on the streets

there are fifty bathhouses near me

but I choose this one

the fairy princess rats coming to clean my feet

there’s a streetlight nearby

but I can barely see my feet

toweling down with nothing I’m walking through

feet gently pressing the stones

—feet—

Pushkin was obsessed with those

dear little feet

diminutive

languages that I don’t know can never understand

operas that play in the sounds of the divorcing couples

who can’t afford to separate

the orchestra roaring with gunshots

in the next street

the conductor breathing heavily

siren noises of distress

and I’m here

in the front row

your home is glossy with rain it’s under the street

like in It, you know, where the rain is dripping

nothing floats around here actually

gravity seems to have more of an effect

pushing me into your arms, the bed

pushing your eyes back into your head

everything is clean until you open your eyes

and then we want to scrub out our skin with bleach

I do anyway I don’t know about you

you’re filthy you’re

covered in flies and shit and other things I’m

not imagining

I want to smack you over the head with the sound of clacking blinds

I want to go someplace with solid unsoiled covers

the mold is growing over my feet here

webbing me together with the cobwebs

‘get out’ you said and then

your mouth filled with spiders and

your skin turns green

and I want to replace my blood with bleach

SCRUB everything until the skin is raw and splits

like your brow splits when I say I’m leaving

I’m climbing out

you never see someone get out of the drain

the air is dark again

it’s never day here the blinds

exist on the level of the city

who was it — plato? — the city is like the person

find justice in the cities and you find it in the person

but all of the cities are unjust?

the red and blue conductors leering at me as I

walk toward white walls

white walls an enclosed space where I hope to escape

white walls like the reflection on street signs

white walls like the insides of my eyelids

white walls like denial laced with bleach — please

give me something to steal

something to smoke

something to eat

white walls of the fabric store

I like running my fingers over them

laced with beauty and possibilities and ballgowns and costumes

laced with love and quilts and grandmothers and pajama pants

pick a color and you pick a lie

cover yourself in curtains and you’re still unbleached

black curtains turning orange and you clean yourself

the spots leaking through until you’re all

sickly again

I get a few yards and leave the store

dark green fabric burning a hole under my arm against my ribs I’ve got

no place to put it no needle and thread

just a few yards of squandered potential 

taking it to one of those places that has a lot of rocks and smells like incense

like the inside of a church but more class

you look like a priest but more purple

you’ve covered in cloth and I’m lying to you

with my intent

I close my eyes and you replace my hands with photographs

smokey in the walls and bright colors in my mouth

my hands show people cutting ropes

people in the city

people like me with blacked out faces

people, people, people

people crying at the boarder

my head is a snow globe of America

the particles of desperation and destitution are settling around my shoulders

I’m crying down the skyscrapers

I’m holding hands with you, you’re taking my cloth

and sewing my shroud