WRITING EXERCISE BREATHING OUTSIDE MY BINDER

I’m as trapped as a housefly

in a vagrant’s unwashed beard.

Yesterday’s stinging snapshots:

fatty salted meat grilling madly,

a dying bulb sputtering heat and speckles of light,

Mama’s keloid-scarred cheek suffering pink foundation.

To balance that then with this now,

I gulp potent cocktails

of fluoxetine and chardonnay, and confess

that I am partial to crying jags

and this thing James Taylor coos:

Here comes another gray morning,

a not so good morning after all. . . .

I itch that scratch

before the refrain of the real

fades and forces me back

to my $50-a-week white woman.

Our current topic:

I collapse beneath touches.

What rises me is the relentless

march of seconds, guffawing weirdly,

all dressed in their heaven-bound church hats

and ripped little gowns.