What Have You Lost?

[rehab workbook]

sensation of rain on skin
the moon-eye

walks along the Ohio
at 2 a.m.

how a body feels
its humidity

its badger hands slowly
burrowing holes between my ribs

what meat tastes like
off the grill

a little privacy
please

jokes shared
with anyone

not gathering dust
in a cage beside me

*

I stepped too lightly
on the Earth

fell off
I drifted

through life-space
like a missile

made by mistake
from a dropped bolt

I lost my footing
lost my place

*

my eyes learned
to love a wall &

cracked jaundice
of the upper bunk

*

I breathed scents
of men like mud &

wood smoke
like a sewer

I slept & dreamt I was free
I lost that too

*

the house
the car

their broken pipes &
faulty parts

the overgrown lawn
flooded basement

mortgage bills & fees
I want them back

what I gave
to rid them of my life

 

 

Ace Boggess is author of three books of poetry, most recently Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017), and the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

 

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