At eight past eleven, I stood outside
the roar of coiling limbs, the plastic alcohol.
Then down those slanted halls, but first ink
of two black crosses behind the knuckles.
Oh tobacco, you wash over us now.
What raw odds we give conscience,
where men prod over auction goods.
What a solid, silent association
now circles the transfixed and resigned.
Here is a commonplace exposé of the id.
The ink, a cursory scarring in comparison;
and again an immediate release to night.
