Fingers hooked, he and I hook the corner.
A heel clip-clops then flounders
in the dark. I face the window; the building a face.
The door yawns. Broken blinds let light escape
onto the street. A constant static. What else
is there when a clenched-jaw warning melts
into two fingers V-ed and vanishing
inside? Sometimes, I wish my body would vanish
without crumbling. I would say goodbye brain,
my tiny Chernobyl. Glowing, eerie, he is saying,
Shut the door, so I do. What makes a building
a ruin is its countless openings—
not nothingness, but suction. The missing molar
filled with the tongue’s gummy roll.
