The day my fingers fell off
I was at the pharmacy
my thumb rolled down the counter
to the digital scale
and rang up one cent
my index finger fell to the floor
along with some change.
I picked them up with my other hand,
put them into my breast pocket
and counted out clumsy coins.
The cashier looked annoyed
and people behind me sighed
clucking their impatient tongues.
I walked quickly to the automatic door
leaving behind a trail of rolling digits like
tiny breadsticks in a plastic metal forest
shading my eyes with one of my stumps
bent at the wrist like a caveman club
I fell
and bumped my nose against a
stop sign
knocking my right eye loose
landing like an overripe grape
bouncing off athletic shoes
My elbow pinch-twisted
like melted glass and broke
pirouetting as it fell
against buckling knees
kicked ahead of me
as I began to run
no one noticed
as my trembling legs
gave way beneath me
and my head fell from my shoulders
kicked like a hairy soccer ball
a macabre slapstick gag
in some old silent movie.
No one saw
as my chest collapsed
crumpled like newspaper trash
stomach splitting open
like a soggy sack of beans
10
No one stopped, or glanced,
as I came undone
a house of cards
caught by a sudden breeze
on a cold day’s dry and lonely
picnic table
a pile
of loose limbed fragments
and tattered torso traces
bloodless
painless
puzzle pieces
trod
into cold cement cracks
by passing hurried feet
worn down
like sand dunes
in
a desert
storm.