3 hours


8:00

I grew up in one room that
became many rooms, more rooms
than I could possibly count on
I began to see them in terms

of negative space; no matter how
much furniture you stuff into a bed-
room it's still essentially air. A pre-
dominant nowhere

occasionally sideswiping the
lamp or bedpost. The nameless
something in half our stories
turned me into

a chameleon
in the dark.


9:00

And really, what's sadder
than dark imitating dark?

my first scent of inferiority
came at just eleven, faking
my first flu to miss a math
test because nothing

added up back then
because a boy under
a hundred pounds can
only hold the world

in his head
for so long.


1:00

now I juggle a bagful
of private occupations like bowling pins
I drop one and another
appears with two

more faces and a whole new
hunger; the monotony of replacing
windows has diced my
heart into sections:

part-ghost, part-athlete
part-doctor, part-curator
part-singer, part-butcher

an astronaut turned priest
the man who saw now simply
the man who must
believe.