• In The Mental Ward

    The wet tree outside my window
    says
    spring is coming
    I can smell the soggy bark
    though the glass
    the mold creeps through
    where the draft comes through
    my bed is made
    I am waiting for breakfast

    The boy across the hallway speaks
    murmurs grunts
    his fat sticky fingers come
    under the doorway
    into my vocal tubes

    an ant on the floor
    among the sterile, multi-colored
    threads of the carpet
    looks up at
    my hair and clothes