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THREE MONTHS IN A ROOM IN MANHATTAN

Painted-up fireplace

at the foot of the folding chair; a bed

where space was made, avoided,

and offered financial advice —

I shimmied snags on the pre-war

brick, wound about painted-over

cables, looped the crumbled caulking

into nooses to hang this fifth-story

minihome, while drips of glass heavied the blinds

and offered occupational advice. Wallpaper ants

unsmothered by trash-garden-heat, by ganja

heaps in laundry-humid courtyards — all of them

leaves, thin like walls: occupational hazards

and passerby. No neighbors but the mornings,

weekends, nights in all directions. Never

ask for directions. Make dinner, lose

money. Add strings to the vent,

to the walls, tethers to my

appendix, damp and unremovable

like my security deposit. I never saw,

was never sure — was that crackle

a family of rats in the sink,

feasting, or glowing

like fallout?

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