The Tenant

I was chewing a sandwich, thinking of rent,

when the teeth met the muscle and stayed.

A sharp, metallic burst of heat

and then the slow, rhythmic throb.

I stood in the bathroom under the bulb

and pulled it out to see the damage.

It’s a pale, wet thing, pebbled and raw,

crowded behind the yellowing fence of my bite.

It looks like something that shouldn't be mine,

an animal trapped in a soft, dark room.

I watched the blood bloom in the spit

and wondered how I ever learned to speak.