Allowance

Michaelmas 2018

Allowance

Michael Schmidtke (bio )

Here I am,
a ten piece puzzle.
Anyone could do it.
A brick church congeals
over there; rain berates
a window. A beautiful

man at the door
is the last piece,
I say to myself.

His fingers move
like currency in a foreign

economy. I’d be
the coffee grounds clinging
to the bristles of his broom,

the violet static
of his closed book—
I wasn’t made with a piece
of self-love, which is all

it comes down to, our parcels
of wind, this vision
of another life clattering away
like a god’s favored horse.

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