after Job

When no one is here,
I eat all the cheesecake
with my unwashed hands. I’ve forgotten
what my face looks like, as I will
forget yours. I feel
a pounding, sharp
wings or stones shaking, African
violets. Branches—what grows
there? At night I sleep on a couch
near my son’s bed because
I don’t know what will happen,
or if I am ever
not ugly—but he—. Look at what
I am not. And if it’s true
a man rots or is eaten, chased down,
a harvested chaff— these sticky, skinny fingers.
Who gives such a girl
any kingdom or quiet rest.