I didn’t mind when the Chancellor’s people came
When they found me still lying on my dirt road
When they produced a suitcase
When they folded my body into a painful square
So that it might fit inside
I didn’t mind
Being pulled along the dusty road for hours with only two open inches
of zipper
To breathe through
One moment I saw the orange and pink remains of the sun over water
The next I saw stars
Now it’s a November morning and I’m holed up in the Farmhouse
As I have been for six months
I’m playing a game of pulling my turtleneck over my head
Entirely covering my face
And then drinking coffee through the fabric
Because it doesn’t work, because it burns and dirties me, it satisfies like
little else