changing the locks

the man with a balloon for a head
would bang on our windows all night.
you were driving the car
into a cloud of fire. i have maybe
never known what i wanted.
i didn't want you i wanted 
a place to sleep. i wanted a pile
of fingers in the ripe dark. maybe
you felt the same or maybe i am 
sick & it is too late. rice on the stove.
a mirror in the blue bathroom. 
this country gives us 
the wrong questions. what 
do you want out of life? as if a body
& the land were a vending machine. 
once though i was standing in the vestibule
as the rain pelted the earth & 
a man taking there too asked someone 
on the phone what do you want to feel?
i found small joys in that apartment.
the potato i grew in the window
until it got mites. the curtains that
finally replaced flags i had taped
into the glass to hide our flesh. 
there was another man who came 
in the morning & jiggled 
all the doorknobs, hoping to find one open.
he had nails for eyes. i imagined his hands
were somehow soft. 
the next day the building gutter came.
he had doorknobs in a shopping bag.
dropped our old handle to the floor.
some guy across the street with
a pet tiger was weeping. i wept too.
there was a portal into our little home.
i stared through it & imagined putting 
my fist there. holding out my hand
all day in anticipation of the doorknob tester.
maybe he would use me as 
a doorknob. pull me until he got inside. 
glory hole in the reverse. leave me restless. 
he would come five more times
to change the locks. once in the middle
of the night on a phone call with
his ex. i pretended i was her.
the balloon head man asked from
the sidewalk can't we just turn off the lights?
i listened to him. turned off every light
in the apartment. sat in the dark. he stopped banging.
no one else was in the apartment but me.
someone stole all the tires off your car 
but somehow you drove it anyway.