Dodo Eraser

After Romy Rhoads Ewing

a rich person should pay me
to live in a tiny home constructed

in a private corner of their property,
emerging when occasionally summoned

for meals and to play my part
as court jester—this is the reparations

i am owed, bare minimum. my nightmares
are cast in their fine crystal, etched

like bespoke print framed on velvet
wallpaper. did you know one time, i got

to hold a chagall drawing? someone
was buying it to hang in their home

office, and here i am, still trying
to fathom the unfathomable. i have

never been a pawn, just a spectacle—
something shiny to grow bored of.

i want someone to say that one, there. that
little freak, and point to me and mean it

for once. mean it for keeps. instead,
i self-allocate to the damages shelf:

excellent vintage condition. how come even
in my own fantasy, i’m a commodity?

enough. the discard pile is growing.
we’re running out of deck here, ace

of hearts unturned. ace of spades
wild as carpet of back-forest ferns.

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nat raum is a disabled artist, writer, editor, and genderless disaster based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. Past and upcoming publishers of their writing include Split Lip Magazine, Poetry.onl, Baltimore Beat, Poet Lore, beestung, and others. Find them online at natraum.com.