His Holdings

Sky went down blue and fair         watered         a wash over it

      they taught me to pull bodies from the archive to determine their holdings

to update bodies for the current fiscal year                      they asked the donor

what are you holding inside you like a long wet drip in a smear of color

like a moment of clarity to be measured                 and entered into

             every day the donor expels one-third of his body’s water in his breath

                        its exit from his lungs

                                    once, the donor was called a slumlord

but we leave this out    once, the donor called himself a mediocre student

   his true passion is ranching

            his true passion is charging three hundred dollars for a chemical

            that cost him

five to manufacture    the donor is often called a good man      or his family,

   lovely people

                                   I watch him from my double screens

                                   outside in the blue

before black the swollen arachnid body climbs wildly on its appendages

                                                                                 the web   thickens

with legs    and something dark drops down    and some milky wing rises up

and they gave me a formal language to wrap him in