HOW MUCH WHISKEY AM I SUPPOSED TO DRINK BEFORE I BECOME A GHOST

I don’t know
what it is with people
dropping before the winter.
I take the F train to East Village
where I sit on a bench
in Tompkins Square.
There’s a woman with Leslie’s eyes.
I’ve never met Leslie,
but the woman in the park
has her eyes & she’s feeding
the plump black squirrels.
Maman doesn’t register
on the donor list because
Dad doesn’t want her eyes
to open on a different tree.
No one in America wants my mad blood,
no one in America wants my colon
blossoming pomegranate-sized tumors,
or my unfeminine uterus, unable
to carry an almond.
There must be manuals
on how to keep everything in.
-How to stitch your lips together,
glue eyelashes closed- for the wake.
But no matter how you scrub skin,
bone is bone is bone
& the smell of death,
the loss of pigment,
still lingers behind the ear.