you don’t have to.

Awake is the man next to the stove

His counter is covered with shards of glass

And wax slips out his mouth

The fingerprints he leaves are not the fingerprints

He owns. Where his mother smoked her first cigarette

Is the same place we put our thoughts to rest.

Beneath our feet, our shoes, the Earth moves.

The rivers turn to centuries as the rose turns to dust

She must

                She MUST

                                must.

                                              Her eyes blink.