self-portrait in the metropolis

COHORT 2

I can’t remember the last time I slept

past six. Black-and-white film 

reel days whirl by before suddenly 

it’s three a.m. again, my breath twisting 

slender and naked in the cold, glow 

of the laptop screen ripening 

my eyes red like plums. Digital 

metronome of young America pulsing go, 

go, go. January first: a hollow canvas, blurred 

end, still the same car engines 

threading sound into the silence outside, same 

dirty plates sleeping in the sink 

like bodies. There is so much to do and so 

little left of me. The laptop’s heat fevers 

my thighs, makes them stranger 

to the night’s 35 mm film chill. Its finite 

frames per second. The couple in the apartment 

across the street slow dances in front 

of their window, but when I look up again 

the building is dark and I’m not sure 

what is or isn’t delusion. Tomorrow more hours 

will shift in like snow. As they approach 

I’ll turn on the lights, fill a glass 

of water, quiet myself to meet them.