If this boy
you inhabit is a hotel,
its neon needles
the alphabet lightly. Bibles loam
unopened in the boredom
of bedside tables, patient little loaves
of leather, black
in their theaters of compressed sleep.
*
In each room
of each lung,
silence swells
like a syndicate of ants.
A ghost unfurls
like a flower from the television. The bathroom
window broken, the wind asking questions.
Asking you to come outside,
to see what it has against you.