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2:30 AM Pennsylvania Avenue

Tanya is pregnant and fighting
with her sister, Lori.
They are drunk and very loud.
Their screams bang against my bedroom walls,
Their apartment is crashing. I do not
call the police this time.

Lori is angry
because Tanya will have her baby soon.
Lori was supposed to have her baby
today. That baby died
when her boyfriend
beat her up. Not fair. Not fair.

They are repeating the same things
not listening to themselves.
They cry and cry, all the air is pushed out
from their bellies.
I leave them alone
beneath me.

I am listening instead of calling the police.
They are too late already. Lori told me
she has problems because her mother
shot heroin when she was growing
in her stomach.
The sisters are not yet twenty.

I try to sleep,
but my dream builds
on waves of bruised women and dead babies,
the gulls circling overhead,
stabbing the sea for the meat of corpses
crying out
I have nothing!
the jellyfish stinging
with hypos.

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