Outhouse with Maggots
Look at us. Please. Do not run away.
Stay with us here one more minute.
We understand you. That look
on your face. We know what you’ve seen.
The body whole and the body in pieces.
The dark meat of a man’s mind.
Stay with us. We are so busy. It is bliss
to be so occupied. We know how
you stumble from place to place,
looking for fossils, your shoes untied.
Don’t cry. You opened the door to us.
No one asked you to do it. Blind,
we have seen you. We won’t forget
you. We have a way of marking time.
Look behind you, through that moon-
shaped sliver in the door. Do you see
that glimmering shape with its head
upraised? The tensed limbs, newly formed
from the rich rid—what you thought
was only suffering and waste?
