I am invited

to stand guard at the edge of the party and I sip

the languid clarity / Anubis,

I fall for no one, but hard

when I’m at home I touch everything

in my kitchen, I am iron, and soothed.

It is not my language, and I can only

not try to connect

dry-eyed and unsmiling, I imagine

to be a bone splinter sticking

out of Paul Snoek’s chest

after the accident

I haven’t wished

well on anyone since

I was born