How today tastes.

All I [was/am/will be] exists
within a
smeared display case.

I catch glimpses
of relief
between the greasy palmlines
left by lookers-on,

gasp with fiberglass lungs
that cannot,
without splintering,
churn such stale air,

sweat in the company
of nothingness
most stifling
under these spotlights.

I am

exposed as museum fodder,
regarded and disregarded
in the same hour,

distressed as a doe
with ears pricked
toward tire cries,

with every capillary taut enough
for a tight-roper
to tip-toe with arms out
from left heel to scalp,

all of this
on the tip of
a long-bitten tongue
convinced of its unworthiness
to be helped.