Mark Scroggins



	spin cycle

a child beaten
	to death again
compromising our fiduciary
	responsibilities like
		brushed steel or painted
	porcelain of sinks
		shower curtain
		of the handicapped
	stalls and her voice diminishes
into gray acoustic tiles
time kept over my shoulder
	its lockjaw stride out of
	step with my wristwatch
		blowing bison or carrier
		pigeon into historical
		frames fixing
minutely painted glass
	eyes into taxidermist's
	packing il malcontento just about
		sums it up morose rather
		he spoke through an interpreter
		so his brothers never
	recognized the kohl-lined eyes
as his what mitigation an intelligence
quotient of fifty-six a measure
of fifty daylight
	suffuses my rooms but not
	yours my money but
	not the sort of thing astonishment
		refreshes betoken exculpatory
		gestures eventually rinse us
		all white in the same wash