If you don’t wish to know, why do you
slip, slide under closed doors, take to

shadows, slither, hook-line-sinker-er into
the coat-rack with eyes wide, ears hungry;

why bend into the ceiling and lay as a rug to
one day be taken outside and beaten?

If you do not wish to know, stay
in the bottle, and do not come out. Stay

in the dinner plate, where only the
scrape of silver may reach you.

If you do not wish to know stop teething
on my skin, leech fearful of salt and dreams.

This afternoon—listen here; if you
must know, please, cut this damn lurking.

Ask. I am a window, stuck,
I need only a strong tug. Don’t break me.