Caravaggio

I sit on the floor at the party,
watch my hands shift
under the glow of signs and screens.
Fingers, pornographic watercolors
of unknown origin.
I wanted
to celebrate death
and beauty, but now
I’m just an empty cathedral
standing in the echo
of a fire escape.
Stumbling through arched halls,
I drag golden plates over tables,
undo rib to raveled vein
in a slow electro trance.
Raze it to the ground.
Veil all the mirrors, for I fear
not the spirits
but becoming the haunting.
Burned at the stake
in a past life for this,
but I never learn.
I stand on the rooftop
and the sky devours.
In fields beyond the machines,
flames cleave like eels through seagrass.
And I am wet with circuitry.
And I doubt I could ever
save anyone.
And on the train ride home,
I paint myself holding a lantern
into the murky corners
of this city—
chromatose,
pressing the brute brush
of my skin through canvas,
and I know
I am returning
for the body.