"Birth, and copulation, and death.
That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks:  
Birth, and copulation, and death.”*

But though he repeated them twice,
Those aren’t all the facts when you
 come to brass tacks,
Eliot left out a line:

Somewhere between copulation and death,
When you’re well along, but not near
  your last breath,
You find that the facts when you come to brass tacks are
Ice, ibuprofen and time,
My friend,
Ice, ibuprofen and time.

               


*T.S. Eliot, from Sweeney Agonistes.

in my sweaty palm, melting
is medical-pink candy coating.
the pieces click, clack, roll around,
and the generic sugar tastes sweeter
than ever, sweet like a fever, sweet
like smiles under the concrete bridge.

tastes like sweet'n'low piled high in one-
dollar coffee drained in two seconds,
like buttercream frosting smeared
across your arm. tastes of the indoors,
of doors shut, of stale snicker-doodles.
it is sugar that tastes like promises gone far.

when i swallow (that is three, four, twenty more)
i can taste it in the pit of my stomach:
sweet, sweet candy coating masking
the poison, the anodyne, the analgesic—
candy coating to cover all the little scars.