It was an evening out of Goya – foreground disarray, distant hills,
Coal tar sky, the whole thing soundproof and sullen as a grease trap.
I can’t say if I imagined the needles snapped off in my wrist.
Tomas slashed away with a dull switchblade like a schoolboy
Made to do lines, then explored the wreck with dirty tweezers.
This was near the end, past a certain point of filth
Beyond stale, beyond spoiled, when we smelled, again, like nothing at all. And there was a girl I’d never seen before, held hostage
On the far side of the surgery, blood seeping through the mattress towards her. I was not convinced. I took the knife and made my own cuts
Like the letter H. Dug around. There’s nothing, I said, there’s nothing.
She stopped taking pictures and screamed. Finally, spent, they left me
At the ER, but I didn’t go in, just walked home along the expressway
As dawn broke, colorless, like soda water poured over a stain.
— ADAM SPIEGELMAN
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