Late nights you sleep thin and restless, your
eyes rolling like odometers beneath lids too
pulpy to still them. One day you will not wake

up and you know this. In the mornings, you knot
your own brightly colored noose over a white buttoned
shirt. You grow older with vegetable frailty. Each

morning the greens in your eyes wilts more, browns
and curls at the edges. On the subway to work the
girls bloom, loom at you like threats in pretty dresses.

Their toenails glint like painted teeth. You check your
watch. The clock strikes at you with its hands. The
weight of each passing minute falls on you like a

guillotine and so, sweating, you loosen your tie.