The patch on my shoulder is a chemical bite

The patch on my shoulder is a chemical bite,

gnawing my skin through the middle of the night.

I’m chewing a toothpick, splintered and dry,

watching the neighbor who lives just below.

He leans on the sill with a practiced slow lean,

venting a shape that is steady and clean.

A gray, perfect circle that hangs in the air,

drifting up past the bricks and the dust.

It’s a zero, a hole, a mouth full of ghost,

a trick that I used to value the most.

Now I’m just itchy and watching it fade,

a round bit of nothing the alleyway made.