cartilage

Last night I was so hungry
that as I shoveled dinner
into my mouth voraciously
I accidentally stabbed my lip
with the fork--
I mean blood and everything.

Then today my foreman's friend
called up on lunch break to tell him
that his job in Manhattan had been shut down.
Safety inspectors were swarming the high-rise
after the tragedy that had happened this morning:
a twenty-eight-year-old construction worker
plunged four hundred eighty feet
(yes, to his death, jackass)
while taking apart a rooftop crane unit
without having his harnass tied off.
My lip didn't feel so sore anymore.

And now I'm pacing around eating ice cream
alone in my room, scolding the rabbit
for chewing the sheets and laughing eerily to myself
at the hysterical times spent in the many small rooms
I've already inhabited in these twenty-four years
sometimes over-served but never under-stimulated.

There will be more said times
of pondering the peculiarity of the events
that shape me week to week, month to year
and for this I am grateful
though not as grateful as I will be
when I won't be left alone at night
to overanalzye the day.

Maybe my coworker's right:
it's time to take the earring out, I forget
I have it half the time anyway.