-Would you feel better

          if you had a label?

 

I probe the air with my left eye, spy

socratic poker face with my right -

 

she can't see me, just case notes;

I, unidentified, somewhere between

 

the sighing beige of the walls

and the dirty carpet, stained

 

with confessions, some sharp enough

to draw blood, others hollow and

 

unyielding. She tells me that I

have a lot to be thankful for

 

while I count the brown bricks

outside, each one an exiled breath

 

and the cadaver of wounded trust

makes a morgue of the coffee table.