CAFFEINE

I drink this coffee, ejecting caffeine into veins.
    I am not you, but I am some equivalent,
naked as the day, palpable exactly, recall
            
In a dream
surging through the mind’s shuttlecock,
this coffee instructs, I take my cape
     & wad it into a ball, throw it as high as I am able,
        decoding the air,
    stomach growling like Raskolnikov’s (recall)—

   body
    as dirty as Wellingborough streets,
& today there are people
walking those streets, dirtying themselves,
looking for a carnival ride, looking to disarm
& soak themselves in a feel-good moment,
    regardless of dehydration, sickliness . . .

With precision, I peeled your flowers’ petals
as thin as stigmatism.
            When it comes to love,
I am as blind as night. Mindless
onrush—menopause or men-that-pause?

I am paused. I remain in this skeptical spectacle
position, sipping this slowly cooling coffee,
    mid-afternoon approaching,
needles lost in hay,
a king’s burning crown trailing the queen—

    staggered as from a physical impact,
the total momentum at the beginning
shedding the worst impressions,   
    held captive by my own
noticeable lack of a throbbing Belonging.