are light as beetleshells
protecting and unfelt but off
carapace carom some things
I can’t know now.
Look back to see what I saw
new child, tell
the shames of a then-child
too well in it to flame in
flush confessing its guilt
of low-class stain —
accuse with the bite
of a tidy kept babe
palate clean to taste tang
of humid shag and unwash pride
the slim slick inch above hunger
above the floor by height
of a secondhand bedframe
having only found that
one time vermin in
the vermicelli
left the bedding pissed
for a few days because what
what does an animal really care?
but our used clothes
had no holes in,
not even the sock-bottoms:
that kind of unselfaware
willingtodowhatever
then wave the flag
of a last remaining dignity —
show me its outside,
show me seeing me shameful.
Groping for my own life
in dark senses
I can’t tell you how bad it was.
But I can tell you the precise
moment when some food
is still just okay enough to eat.
