Senator by Zeke Greenwald

I walk to bathroom like to Roman senate:

shoulder-hung bath-towel toga-pendent.

However bearded myself I suppose

unlike Greek philosophers I bathe alone.

And like whenever drip by drip a cold

the hived compartment of your lungs controls

with a concrete and swimmy occupation,

and their walls have ruin in vibration,

cough; and cough wrenches up the stony-melt

and the rocks scratch up their conveyor belt;

and you look to solace in your headphones,

where a classical symphony intones;

but the crowd erupts in quiet measures

with their crumbling phlegm-architecture;

and they take up all your sharp hollow rolls

but you spit up phlegm at their control:

the music just reminds you of one thing

of which you needed no reminding:

thus my teeth twanging floss; thus the shower

say you are alone, you are a coward.

My hook-hung toga takes its vote: alone,

he is alone. Then my peeing makes me groan.

The senate-censure passes: I’m condemned.

What’s fit for loneliness a punishment?

Down the toilet sails my small castration:

loosened now is my better contemplation…

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