“Widow claims advising group, owned by Danville mayor, gave unauthorized access, allowing accounts to be ‘pillaged.’” – 2021 article by Robin Hart in The Advocate-Messenger

You stare at the mottles of mold on the bathroom ceiling

so long they become constellations in your farmhouse backyard.

I guess that makes the bath your home. I guess that makes the soap

your mayor and your body your body. Under the urban water,

you can only clean yourself of city dirt. There are stains inside your glass

flesh. Bugs caught on the other side of your windows. Scraps of beetle

mottled aboard your form. A stagnant filth.

The blood runs through you like the inside of the car,

where your friend’s dad emptied out his head into the bullet end of a 9mm.

The windshield a testament to your freckles. A buildup of dead

on the surface of your skin where nothing can reach

but the withered hand of old man. Roughed crooks of the once-brother.

The insects sit outside his office window, rubbing fists against the glass,

trying to wipe away that damned spot.