Symptoms of Leakage

April & the headlines announce
the end of the world. although we

have no new words in this time of
metastatic illness we drink raw

almond milk & eat dried fruits,
moiled over & palmed & bruised,

the only kind you can get. in the
empty supermarket aisles, blood-cleaned

& ready for anything, we examine what
remains, consider recovery. we reach

for the high shelves & keep on reaching.
at dinner we eat only from cans;

they keep the dust out. we are catatonic
in our devotion. our hunger sits in our mouths

like the ghosts of milk teeth. you bite down
on your palm so hard you hit a vein.

you do not suffer martyrdom, I say, not yet.
you have only laid another starving thing

at my feet. it is oh so strange to see a man
reduced to his knees, flush against the

wood & everything dim & warm with
people, no longer there. bleeding,

we are unrelenting in our obedience.
the women, they move through the house

discordant as hornets, big in their winter
blood through the gallery of forested night

& drawn curtains. yesterday I dreamt of
angels, their feathers pink & wet like

new-hatched chicks or a stillbirth,
but I did not stay long enough
to witness the outcome. 

© A.T. 2020