he is momentarily distracted by the light

his
the vicious lungs
the knowing eyes
the frozen cheeks
the ardent voice

who is the hypodermic?
who is filled with a poison bible?
who is a teat of bile?
who is the fly on the ball?

his
the leftover privilege
the revolver dog
the feathers of iron massage
the candle of blue veins

who is the relict of Buchenwald?
who is the tallow of black magnolia fruit?
who is the kindest loin of a tombstone?
who is the good gambling father of a bludgeon?

he turns back to his work and chews his way out of a corpse

tony-boy sits
under a salt tree
growing a crust.

he molts three times a day.

a bowl full of mousebones sits in his lap.
he mumbles a skull song
while sifting his fingers
through the white skittles.

he would prefer to be alive
and living his vision of accountancy
and fuel-efficient cars.
he would like a marriage and a stable
full of tony-boys to love and smash full
of his dreams.

instead he’s stuck with a salt treehouse
and a magic bean. one at a time he stretches out the worms
he’s been asked to keep safe until they break. he strokes
his way toward an absinthe horizon.
he pretends he is a doctor. he demands a lawyer
who can defend the rights of chiggers.
he thinks an Indian chief would starve if
subjected to an entire forest of salt trees
dropping salt leaves on the ground
even though the deer who flock to feast upon and suck them
are too swollen to escape,

much like tony-boy,
who sits sobbing under a salt tree
and grows another crust
once the scabs from the last one
have fallen.