sickly

it's old
but it's still
stopping bullets
unlike the black tube
which cannot be nursed
                      back to health

I want a word
            - maybe eleven
                        or half a dozen -
that doesn't poke me in the eye
            or brandish
            a second question

unpack all these
            right answers and
freeze what you don't use
            eternally grateful that
you're not starving

not much hope in
            this stench of sickness
but you can resist the smell
        come downstairs or
            try next door
find what you were trying to say
            on irregular steps

there's a sort of thinking
            which mounts up
taking you to the check-out
            with more than you intended
cool traders ticking off a
            best-seller list

you found your keys
      got a form for it
          from a doorman
you thought was coming
                      in to help

we're paying in wires
      to get lost in
                      the middle of nothing
imagine anything worse
than strangling the poor
on a shifting
          life support maching

save me from my
      hollowed out body
reedy with reverberation
thrown up by arching
          hands of light
but not caught on the
                       way
                              down