HE'S MOVED EVERYTHING HE NEEDS INTO ONE ROOM
Lyn Lifshin
walls of books on
the Holocaust, revolutions
and Nam blocking the
light. Paper from
D-Day, divorce
papers with stains of cups
all over. The velvet
zip bag of medals, part
of the moat around the
mattress he's
curled on under
a brushed cotton quilt:
you couldn't call any
thing in this room
a comforter. Crumbs
from the last three
weeks, machete
in a top drawer, machine
guns, a .44. Librium
crumbled near ashes,
punching bag, the
insides spill out
of like entrails
in the jungle he said,
I took the man's
intestines, washed them
off in rain water,
stuffed them back into
the slit like
squeezing bread
crumbs into a turkey
