DRUNK IN THE BATHROOM AT 2:30 A.M.

I am a tube, an organ through which I course ---
Tough, bulging, my skin bordering vacuum.

I sense the sides, me and IT.
Like aloneness in a mansion -
The horror of all those empty rooms.

Where does the dust come from?
It is the world settling, trying to become itself.

We shred the world's parchment, you know -
We are scissors, you and I.

We say left and right, here and there, kicking up dust;
Snip, snip, snip: The choking fibers fly.

Chinamen love tug-of-war because
The rope always wins.

So my will-fingers grasp gray mush,
Squeezing forth a blade to cut their jolly rope,

Or whittle from these bones a pleasing shape -
But inside, there's pulp, there's mush, there's me.

Listen: A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose:
Words are blood from a scissors-nick;
The scissors is called what I am called. I am
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

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