Eyes Unastounding

This was published in Arsenic Lobster, and is included in Poems Mostly of the Sea:

Eyes Unastounding

Who cried in the hall as I walked
On the rug that looped tight as a noose?
Who was it, and why
Could not I have stopped?

Long over, I’ve bypassed the door.
Long gone, though the brakes on the hill
Caterwaul and deprive me of sleep.

I demand that I sleep.
I demand as I still live, I do as I please.
I demand if you kill me,
You take me outside of the town.
Do it far as can be from the center of town.

Eyes overwhelming
Stare down through the cracks in the
Ceiling I’m under.
I hope most of all I may sleep.

Eyes unastounding
Are fastened on me in the
Street, I am freakish.
That now matters little to me.

Eyes in the mirror,
The worst of them all, remind
Me of eyes in the
Ceiling I’m under.
And these eyes deprive me of sleep.