Ground Level

The truck is stuck in some pass in the hills

and my back is a collection of dry sticks.

I lie here watching the streetlamp light

cut a rectangle across the hardwood.

The zipper of the mattress ticks against the floor

every time I breathe too deep.

There is a particular kind of shame in living

at the level of the dust motes and the ants.

At 4 AM, the room is too large.

I’m a spill of human heat in a corner,

waiting for a frame to lift me up

so I can stop seeing the world from the heels.