No stranger to the faith of eyes
asleep under the surgeon's lancet,
to time gambled with every try

How faceless their pathos, the ovals
of these heads, huge, smooth, hermetic
as eggs, and solemn, especially the man’s

Who's to say where the man ends,
the world begins; what it is
that wakes him in a visible sweat,

You could be turning it in your fingers like a planet.
A knife would do, if you're good with knives,
bracing the hard fruit in your slender hand;

I watch your hospital TV as you sleep,
two weeks you sleep, while men walk
in a silent movie, their world eroding