Eulogy for the Reabsorbed
No one talks about 8.
16 and 18 sleep in different beds
in the same room. Both flat on their bellies,
they sleep on sheets that smell
like empty men. They hate mornings.
13 paints her face, pins the corners
of her mouth up with safety pins
and listens to her own footsteps.
Her mind palace is a graveyard,
there she buries all the things
she wished were gone.
10 sits in the sunken place
with 11 and 12. The air is cold and damp.
They meet the first empty man
and he gives them sweets for their years.
10 and 11 are always sorry.
12 is a cynic.
15 is lonely. She builds a box
and locks her monsters inside.
17 pretends.
19 burns the box.
21 and 20 get high together
and sit in silence on the porch.
21 wants to go home.
22 is searching.
