Self-Portrait with an Ice Pick

Imagine the impact—wrecking ball, welcome

     injury or collision, like some secret screamed

in a late-night taxi. And while it was happening,

bile rising and the blind urge of its happening—

     the ice pick striking the white wall of the freezer,

the neon sign glowing through the window

like a red undertow, a sliver of the street corner

     where Essex looked like Sex Street and a low

winter sun vignetted the room, the wedding band

left on the nightstand because betrayal was a tender

     industry then; siempre its one urgent slogan.

There was the mind’s syncopation—fractured,

freezer-burnt, mesmerized by the shards of ice

     that ricocheted across the floor; cuts covering

the knuckles and a hole finally carved out,

big enough for the bottle of vodka where

     Van Gogh’s wheat fields trembled. What the body

wanted was its penance; scar, reminder that I

could love anyone, gnash my teeth on their

     shoulder, then forget them in the subway car,

the stale air and grime of it, metal bar still

grenadine; flower petals ground down to powder;

     names I stumbled through that year when

my one job in the world was to smile in a way

that meant, Say something interesting and I might stay

     for five minutes. I remember Alex, the Bellini-eyed

waiter lighting a match, flicking his wrist

like a gambler drawing fate closer. I remember walking

     home past empty fruit crates and the truncated

frames of bikes still locked to street signs. Helicopters

circling the East River, like a repeated phrase. There was

     no aubade, just sunlight breaking the bones behind

my eyes. What the body wanted was a blank room: