The sun eats away at the earth, or the earth eats away
at itself and burning up,
I sip at punch.
So well practiced at this
living. I have a way of seeing
things as they are: it’s history
that’s done this to me.
It’s the year I’m told
my body will turn rotten,
my money talks but not enough,
I feel my body turn
against me.
Some days I want to spit
me out, the whole mess of me,
but mostly I am good
and quiet.
How much silence buys me
mercy, how much
silence covers all the lives it takes to make me.
In the event of every day and its newness
of disaster, find me sunning on the rooftop, please
don’t ask anything of me.
If I could be anything
I would be the wind,
if I could be nothing
I would be.
drunken library 