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.
