So I can feel better: I take the
dryer up for three rounds, seven-fifty
in quarters for a Saturday at the
laundromat. Brunch at an oyster
place in landlocked Iowa where the
mignonette is too much red wine and
not enough touch—sorry, brine. In the
house with blue paneling, we read Lasky.
The clumps of bluegrass we pull up from the
lawn stumble over themselves
like toddlers or men. I take pills riverside
where we saw the crocodile. Spend
nights rubbing the insides of my palms
on the steel bridge, examining my
damage. I am not the person that I
never wanted to be. Fireflies singing
above my hurt. There is nothing here except
books about poets, clean linens,
salt lamps, all the corners unkempt.
There is nothing here except my hurt.