Two Rooms

Jigsaw men smoke behind cinder block walls,

assemble the pieces of people they’ve been.
Second-hand voices seep under the door
of the coffee-cup room severing “Al” from “Anon”
–Pain extended from pain embraced.

On this side, new converts speak hushed or hurried,
wet-eyed, or wrung dry. Blank lives assume form
with each word offered here, like “he did” and “he said”
or “I told him to go …”

… While the “he” men all speak of the people they’ve been.

The newly birthed “nons” of us pay off our debt,
count each hour we …