For Nicole Eisenman, from A Sand Book, which will be published next month by Tin House.

I was on my knees
Hacking my brains
Alone in a bone

Of unratified light
Someone downstairs
Was retching

& up thru the airshaft blew a baconlike
Breeze with notes of weed & a colorless
Wave came down through the orange

Mesh the super put up to keep out the pigeons
& doves. They beat their wings. Something
Historical was happening to me

Something already
Antique. I felt myself pushing
My hair to one side of my face. I swear

                                   Society
Was making me do it
The voices

From the television reached me. They had
Had to pass through at least three walls.
They were like

Everything.
                                   Everything
Overtakes me eventually