The Premier

On a wave of resignations and dismissals without precedent I rode in. I drove in from Connecticut. I was called in. I sanded down graffiti from the door of my concert box. I took the sixth seventh and eighth floors. I stood out under the red tree and opened the preferable flesh. I took the eighth ninth and tenth. I was deeply in love with the building. Stings the cuts on my fingers, rinds against my toes. A fat brown leaf into the red minnowy leaflets drops and stops dropping. They look down at me. A tenterhook adapted from the linen trade, a cartilaginous collar: I rode in. If you can't chase down your butcher for a cut of white king, see me. If you're from hell, you're from hell, see Fat leaf at rest in the still red tree see me. Who am I if I mean what I sometimes mean. -Joyelle McSweeney