When Your Hand Shakes, When Your Eye’s Meat

When your hand shakes, when your eye’s meat
In the lonely butcher shop of the mirror;
When every street’s a corridor
In Home Town Jail; when you fail, and then
Fail again; when the lens of the door
Frames a stranger’s weaselish face; when plot
Thickens and pace quickens and the
Graffiti won’t wash off the wall;
When leaves sicken in the sun and records
Warp within their sleeves; when the weariness
Of many years claims another friend;
When pipes burst; when the first suspicion
Forms, when the hive swarms; when the poisons
Of the air plant their cancers in your flesh;
When no one answers, when the song exceeds
The breath; when the long-term trend of the market
Is down and stores are empty in the afternoon;
When you’re transfixed within your room
By the squad cars’ squalling rage;
When your hair goes, when your age shows,
When the cupboard’s bare; when you walk
Along a graveled path alert
To the hungers of lovers and squirrels
And the world for a moment flutters
Its skirts and you’re able to peer
Into the whirlpool of your fear.