The Apartment Empties
       

Sometimes the talk inside your head's so loud
the lanterns in your eyes withdraw like priests
receding into catacombs, a crowd
of muted thoughts to carry the deceased.
The outside hurts. You pull back from embrace,
a vampire from the sun. These days the question,
"Would you like a receipt?" and the bland face
of the tongue-pierced clerk awaiting a suggestion
of a response from you is too hard a test.
You live a blank man's life, and what you've found
is that it's easier to go upstairs
and sink through bedding to the underground
cave of roots, hands folded on your chest
in rest, as if in death, as if in prayer.

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Copyright © 2014 Tony Barnstone All rights reserved
from Beast in the Apartment
The Sheep Meadow Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission