soap_and_spit raze i can see the robin's nest she told me about. stripped of its occupants, it's a gutted wicker basket, or a crown of thorns. there's a dead bird at the base of the tree. i tell myself that isn't the mother or her child. it's a winged stranger. downtown, the cops take me for a vagrant. "stick to your side of the street," they say. "we'll stay on ours." i find a dog that isn't mine. grey and frayed like the shirt on my back. he's been cast out too. we walk together for a while. he doesn't follow me into the clinic. a woman wheels over a cart covered with soft toys. i point to a plush giraffe. its body bereft of spots. thirty dollars and change to make it mine. there's no cash in my pocket until i will it to be there. the hoofed mammal becomes a smiling bar of amber soap. a cleansing agent that doubles as hard candy. i haven't even touched it with my tongue and i can already taste it. i can see it shrinking from the spit it dreams of swimming in. it'll be gone by the time i get home. i'll buy it anyway. 230908 what's it to you? who go blather from