I opened the window just now
The metronome of the leaky bathtub
dip
dop
in the next room
Disembodied evidence
of a world outside.
I reset the margins on this old typer
The sputter of the leaky radiator
as familiar as the cars on the street
as the 6 am garbage trucks-
the cacophony of morning,
the wheel of time.
Keep your past lives.
I know nothing about
the world outside my skull
save the leaky bathtub.

But I know those trucks-
and they are older than me,
older than death,
older than the garbage they carry.

I hear them every morning
but they have never heard me.

Tell Shiva to stop dancing.
I'm trying to get some rest.