Four Chambers (of my heart now live on the Lower East Side)

four nickels,
an expired metro card,
a dead friend,
zero regrets.

a peacock,
a palace,
a song,
and a good goddamn grin that stretches farther than my silly eyes can see.

a cottage door,
a fire behind,
a boulevard of five nights,
and a hatchet with blood on it.

the blood has been there for three decades
and a day.
I threw the nickels into the East River,
along with some Nikes,
and a microwave.

my latest calm is so strange.
no longer sleepwalking through life's porch.
four fences,
and a new book
that is old but I have never read it,
even in high school when I was
supposed to read it.

our bodies aren't big enough for our
hearts.