the blue scales of the sea monster

thet deep ends, he said
the scanner is lousy with yellow paper and he will not touch his food
inside the sancuary he is having compulsions
like rome, still a lord even only from the word
he's made up some story about shitting himself as a baby
at his own christening
it ichshpleyns the name they gev me, he said
somewhere it became the truth
years suffused in carbon monoxide
it lolled about him
his dead wife is tentatively climbing the stairs to the bedroom
in the house his sons pushed over two years ago