Spread-eagle on the buzzing generator
        	behind the dialysis center,
 
we read, in rounds, the great poet
        	who died of tongue cancer.  
 
A state senator bestowed honors upon 
        	the oldest tortoise in our petting zoo.
        	
Beaver Lane became Cherry Lane
        	because all of the beavers left. 
 
When J.’s father went down to the basement
        	& never came back up, we all felt the ghosts
 
trailing our backsides like tails, lapping 
        	at our bodies like the breeze, so we huffed 
 
& huffed the warm glue in our paper bags 
        	until we glimpsed new colors. 
 
The year before that we were Capulets.  
        	The year before that we rolled up 
 
to the walls of cardboard Troy in a giant 
        	cardboard horse & sacked the entire city.
 
Visiting J. in the treatment center, he says 
        	what he misses most is the people.