The Inutiles

  

     They live among the trappings of their thoughts.
     At night they lie down in tents
     with someone else's breath inside their lungs.
     Their clothes are bags.

     I live in the tent I was born
     pitched at the mighty Rappahannock
     like a gut, degusting
                       finite units     finite sums–

                       two kiss through a chain
                                  fence, bodily

                   enlisted only to the histories
      of this mudbank: my work
                         is one                    is like a love
                                  you give it to people

              you lie out at night with mackinaw
                                 and hound at hand
                 bone pipe and
                            cuss         the scrimshander.

 

 

 

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James Capozzi comes from New Jersey. His poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, New Republic, and elsewhere.