Why is this man narrating his story?
With no warning, despite his revisions
he meets his end with little fanfare.
Look what I have written. In a quiet room
I tell my story to a woman in a white jacket.
Her body is a blank page, a harlot's journal.
Outside, the darling world, bright and false,
strained, moving into its third act unscripted,
conspires to fill my part with understudied.
Even as I slip apart, I memorize my lines,
word for bread, pills for heart, smiles for self,
I sleepwalk out onto Roxbury Ave. to find my car.
