A young king,
oak, painted and gilded, writing
no one should be so unhappy,
holding his hands out
but his arms are missing from the shoulders down,
his right side’s gone, his mouth’s
flaking like a mirror, still
photograph of your childhood,
your son. No one
should be so unhappy, should lie
still in that bending room
where all the atoms fly
off their hooks, animals and children
and friends kill, it was a delusion,
we were not living, the hotel floor
wasn’t coming and going and coming
at that great head hurled radiant, flat
at the new world.
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