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Four floors up, I’d look up from my work and cherish
the little arc of calm I felt from time to time.
I liked a drink, and to pose myself a problem
I could not always solve.
Now and again,
I’d bite into a lemon, to clear my head.
The acid was like a hook in my mouth: It was so sour,
I thought it must be good.
*
The one with the sewn-up face, he gave me
an electric feeling.
I got a little belly from all our drinking, and cooked meats
tasted distressingly of animal. I felt glad
of my tidy apartment and my four gas rings.
I came to read a little less.
I wondered what I was, or even just what I looked like,
idling in that way.
This poem appears in the April 2025 print edition.
