On the third day alone
I begin talking aloud to myself
Or, perhaps, I will eat myself to death
I wake at night
with the word necrosis
in my thoughts
What is it, oh what,
country of my soul
who will you eat yourself out of
given such rot?
Will you smell yourself
dying with putrefaction?
how can anyone be left alone
with their thoughts,
such thoughts,
when the rats nibble
at our toes
and bandits make
for our heart?
Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of a novel based on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, titled Suosso's Lane. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as Off The Coast, The Journal of American Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, TheNewVerse.News, Califragile, and Unlikely Stories. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. The chapbook Cocktails in the Wild followed in 2018. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.