Temporary Apartment
At times the body hides its evidence, missed synapse,
not sickness but a gap or a lack, what is taken
for granted. No amount, no way of compensation. 
How my grandfather lived decades with shrapnel

from the war in his brain, the brain in its broken
state warring, firing into the void. Still, I don’t trust
the doctor’s robust machinery. How can this beacon 
of my body guiding a body out of the ancient

sea be turned back into sea? No heartbeat under
my heart asking, “Who will you be?”when the night
wakes us with proof on the sheets, when the husk

of the bathtub catches me as my legs surrender, 
and I lie there in the dark in our sublet apartment
wondering what’s in the rooms closed off to us.
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