Shall I sell it door to door?

Dirt under my fingernails.

Ear-bones out of home-made brandy.

Spider nests from my liver.

It’s just beginning, this hump

That makes me take a step

Differently. Something bristly, growing

In its hiding place, evicting me

With a raised shovel.

Naturally I tried to argue, to convince …

Then on the sly, stuff it in a sack

Full of rocks and drop it in a river.

It waited with open arms on my return.

We made love. Later, I shared

A can of sardines with it and a cup of milk

It’s getting fat with drool off my spoon,

With spittle I aim at its face.

Now I breathe only its breath

Of dirty diapers, of lint

That lines the pockets, of sweat.

If I’m still awake, it’s because

It needs this light to read by

The Lives of its Saints:

How an old Polish woman

Saw God as she scrubbed floors.