Staring Back

I. Morning

When I went to sleep
Either/Or
was just starting.
I woke before
From a Basement on a Hill
finished,
rousted by the jaunty chiming
of my phone.

I rolled on my sleeping bags and
hit the button on the side
of that blue alarm clock
as it sat
on top
of my Yale’s Complete Shakespeare.
I stretched, stood up,
and walked to the kitchen.

We had found ourselves without creamer
the day before, and for this reason
or some other
she had not set the auto-timer
on the coffee maker.

In the bathroom
I brushed my teeth and spit
a little blood out
with my baking soda/peroxide toothpaste,
jumped in a shower that was too hot
and jumped out a little over seven minutes later.
I always brush my teeth too hard.
I am a wrecking ball to a toothbrush.

I put the same boxers on as before,
measured two cups of water in a pot,
set the burner to High,
and went to her room to wake her.
She made a noncommittal sound.

I dropped the ramen into the boiling water,
set a timer for three minutes,
went to my room to put on pants and a shirt,
walked past her bird’s cage
(draped in black for a funeral)
and loudly said,
“Yo. Get the fuck up.”
She, muffled by her pillow, replied
“I am up.”
I told her that it didn’t count until she was sitting.
She acquiesced.

I ate my ramen
and pinned a bluebird over my heart
and waited until it was time to go.
I put my sunglasses on
and locked the door
as I shut it and stepped out
into a surprisingly pleasant manifestation of Sol.

II. Noon

I had forgotten my sandwich
and my stomach was again
a hollow bone that had yet to be made into a skeleton key,
sitting with that fledgling demonic grin,
smiling with every promise of a cavernous future,
yawning with a gaping maw that sent shudders
to my bloody-bitten fingernails.

I silenced it.
I had not asked its opinion.

I licked my tongue over my gums
and became troubled.
I pushed through a set
of lightning-flashed-sand doors
and found the nearest mirror.
Most of the time I do not like those
masterful reflections in polished glass.

They remind me too much
of something out of Nietzsche.

This time that shiftless mass blanketing one wall
was useful.
Leering back
were things vaguely scorbutic but completely unacceptable.

III. Sun Falling

If I had a soul
It would be twisted up in a circle
like a broken guitar string in a foreign town
and tossed surreptitiously into
the corner of a room,
where It would remain
quite satisfied
with the occasional brightness
of a smile.

If I had a soul
It would be decrepit
like a battered sixty-five year-old book
and
It would sit on a desk
while a mockingbird sang
from its ancient lunar perch.

If I had a soul
It would be hidden behind mirrored sunglasses
and the permanent shadows in photographs
and
It would spend all of its time
treading water
with a mermaid grasping on, giving soft laughs
as she thrashed her tail ever deeper.

IV. Midnight

I unlocked the doorknob and pushed.
Nothing.
I moved the key up to the deadbolt lock,
having trouble with even common tasks
as it stuck halfway in.
She opened the door and I stepped inside.

There was only one package of ramen in the cupboard.
There were no pieces of bread,
no butter,
two eggs,
and one flour tortilla
dancing in a controlled climate.

I found and opened a can of ranch style red beans
and heated them in the microwave.
She said “Poverty is the best diet.”
I found it hard to argue.
I ate them with a spoon. They were not half bad.

I went to the cabinet where her medicines
and various vitamins reside.
I took a B supplement to fight off beriberi.
My eyes had been lousy for a few days
and I thought I’d found something to blame.
I didn’t want to get glasses, even ones for reading,
and in any case I couldn’t afford them
though they have them for a dollar in certain stores.

I saw a bottle of Women’s Once-a-Day vitamins
behind the translucent orange,
clutched it in my ugly hands and spun it around to see
if there was C in it. There was.
I asked permission, checked for iron content (not alarmingly high)
and took three.

You have to be one hell of an idiot to not notice
early symptoms of scurvy once you’ve had them before.

You have to be
one hell
of a something
to exhibit
the early symptoms of scurvy once you’ve had it before.