3.
the toilet paper has lifted
and left the window sill
and is unrolling lumpily over
the onion weed. It lolls
and jerks and flies and whips and
hotly I voice the fire
that is burning my ribs –
The Mouth, the orifice
of both holiness and pollution –
and you have passed a message
to me through someone else
when I am close enough to you
to hurt you
if I wanted to.

© 2001 Trout &
Emily Dobson