poem: end of year

wet sludge, and his face, and fingers — are damp
I am not the one who beats all the heads in, I am not the dregs — stretched
out, across all my life — it cannot always come back to this. skin
is sloughing off, collects under his nails, gathers at the wrists and
congests into lines at the neck. There is a musty smell in the apartment
and a coffee maker from ’07 and footsteps at dawn, the teaching hour.
The mattress has a slight spring to
it, the window opens to the street. When it rains the street sloughs into
his room and grey, bleak, hail makes
masks on the screen — I cannot always be the one with the baggage, with
the story, I have to come into this argument as
an independent variable. The cats like it when he sleeps
all day. The glow of December comes down and curls on his face
and his nails keep the dead skin keep the rest. The body
is already entombed.