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Second Slice Each drug that numbs alerts another nerve to pain. —Robert Lowell Infant again In the long weak days, An easy collapse Into someone’s hands, Those knowing, hard-knuckled, hypnotic hands. • • • This time, I get it In the neck, making everything Hard to swallow. • • • Barcode of the winter trees. And I still can’t tell What all this will Cost come spring. • • • Blood sugar once more Spiked under the blade. But why should pain Sweeten Whatever’s inside me? • • • 37 • • • Like a sheriff slow-strolling To a gunfight, I shuffle the corridors, Piss bag strapped to my thigh. Do not forsake me, O my darlin’ . . . • • • After the bone spurs and bad discs, They tightened the spine down With titanium plate, Until I was Shining in my own dark. • • • Fog over snow. Even January ends Muffled in drugs. • • • As before, another high rasp In the throat, air Straining into silence, my voice A tremor At the vanishing point. • • • 38 ...

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