-tearing away,
the lines faltering
 toward  nowhere,
he crumpled  the
futile scribblings,
scratched his head,
and sank into his hands.
He pressed against his face,
trying to guide the drained clay
of flesh back into a
   determined visage.
Instead vitality pooled at his
ankles; plodding blood
smarted in his toes,
capillary action in careworn
      Birkenstocks.

Sharp eyes shut.
Prostrate.
Arc of dog-eared Salinger, Stevens,
mothballed pencils, motley capless pens,
and disheveled
paper, paper, paper,
looking askance.

Surrounded by unadorned
photographless walls,
he bends under
the tightening curve,
and bleeds
a ruptured constellation
from sealed lids.

David Matos