My neighbor leaves
a bowl out in the hall.

The fire door leans
on its hinges.

In the darkness
my window is open,

drinking the light. I’m lonely
in a way that fizzes

the skin of my jaw. You look
tired, my friend said

when she saw
how I’d done my hair.

The drunk girls, outside,
cut through the grass.

One takes off her shirt
to piss in the courtyard.

Don’t worry, she says,
I’ve done this before.

That same night
I have a dream

that I have been betrayed.
A blur of faces accuses

me of my false math. Two
is the same as twenty.


As surgery
in a crowded room.

Callan Latham