pocket protectors

money to buy pants with empty pockets
space to place an interpant exchange
of fluids pigmented and watercoloring
off the face of commerce:

under where businessmen with careful creases
trade stocks for salmonella
hedge funds for hash-
remembering the advice of a thousand doctors
“sickness in small doses
keeps you healthy”
which reaffirms the value of our smallness
hidden as we are in patch pockets
praying to stay out of the wash
where our bodies are wiped clean
true colors run and messages melt
a loss of life
a small earthquake
dose

at my baptism I drowned
in detergent it was a futile exercise in hygiene
like trying to rinse George Washington’s face from a dollar
it may be a dirty message on the back of a stall door
but it has come to define
What that stall means:
a place where bodies are eager
pockets to be stuffed and traded
by schoolchildren for money
to buy pants with empty pockets