Fresh Meat

The folding chair is cold against my thighs.

I’m the only one here whose eyes don’t squint

at the fuzzy xerox on the table.

The man to my left has a plastic bottle,

the cap sealed tight with a serrated ring.

He nudges it toward me, his hand a map

of blue veins and paper-thin skin.

The light hits his knuckles, turning them

into polished stones, translucent and white.

I twist until the plastic cracks—

a sound like a bone snapping in the quiet.

I hand it back, my own skin thick and oily,

feeling like a heavy, unread book

in a room of fragile spines.