Do I look scrawny? Elizabeth asked, on her miserable Parkinson’s diet,
no more foods she loved, she wasn’t supposed to drink
but she was drinking a little, red wine, because you can’t forgo everything,
and you can’t secrete a protective layer like a tree frog
or stay still as a cottontail or pretend you’re a stick or rock or flower
to keep yourself safe, the world seeps in no matter what.
Slumps, glowering,
ten feet tall
in a corner of the white museum.
the first time they do it after lights-out in the library. the second in a borrowed backseat. the third in an empty classroom. the fourth in the woods on a scratchy blanket.
Who, in a back room, prepares the folders? The ones that look like menus from ’80s family restaurants. In the
We both know the smell of a convenience store at 4 a.m. like the backs
of alotta hands.
She sells me trucker crack/Mini-Thins (it’s like Vivarin).
She doesn’t make me feel awkward about it.
She can tell it’s been a long drive and it’s only gonna get longer.
Offers me a free cup of coffee, but I never touch the stuff.
Besides, I’m gonna need more speed than that.
Not even Hildegard knew that the manuscripts she wrote were written hand to skin or the hard number of sheep