Knock

knocking at the door is a call-girl.
I am sitting at the couch
calmly dressed in a grey suit
with a faint purple tie
about my neck—my collar is
too tight. I feel like I am choking,
drowning, even, under the hot
redness of my skin, of my sweat.

I stand to answer the knock,
but I freeze and stare at the door.

Again, the knocking, a faint
Hello? The blood boils within me.
I move as a dark cloud across the room—
the soiled, unkempt carpet that I tread,
it is as quicksand—to move—
to move is as quicksand:
to sink and drown under the weight
of this: of communion—O, this walking!
Past the rows of dusty furniture,
upon the faint tracks rolled out, dug in—
the answering of an ancient knock
that echoes throughout my mind,
the dark caverns dripping with the wetness
that rolls off slowly from my upper lip.

With the sticky, salty, sweat upon my palm,
I turn the knob, to let the body in—