Gear-grinding, sure, but the woman dreaming in 4F
sees the monster spawned by her boss’s daily belittlements
devour in one roaring gulp both the Smith Barney courier
in the apartment across the air shaft who comes home from work and strips
to the black Brazilian thong he likes to parade around in
and his insomniac schnauzer that yaps at fire-escape cats.
What monster is this? There’s no name for it,
nor for the rancor that forms it
nightly inside her brain, and it is merely a chimera
safely encased in thick skull bone,
but on the morning she spies the suddenly kimono-clad courier
feeding his schnauzer a croissant, she remembers
what woke her was her boss drilling her skull a borehole
for the monster to fly out like a cockroach
that owns her and walks her to work on a leash.