(Untitled)

Alone, fixing himself

a special brownie in

the Section 8 apartment.


Smashing a sea glass bong

against thin white walls,

he listens as minutes

bead in sharp blue

and green jagged

ring stone.
 

A serration of smoke

on his pale, resin

caked index finger.

Another ritual, gold plated,

his own smoking purse;

a hookah’s red hose winds

around his pale arm

hosing hours off his pain--

and years off the same

grey membrain.

Beneath a baseball cap

worn with green:

the day’s clear

begins to drizzle nicely

and has him count

a precise number in time

the adopted fathers’

belt can snap

without breaking.

He was a cop,

of course, and

no one would have

believed him:

not his mother,

the crazy hoodrat

or his case worker,

with that livid nose like a

frozen turkey’s vagina.

Everyone knew, after all,

schizophrenia kills not just, it's

anything but must kill

everything around them.
 

3 years later, he is vacuuming

floors and eating Ramen Noodles.

I heard him cackle frequently,

but never laugh.