Catherine Barnett

Actuarial

Have you ever seen them,
the mortality tables?
Charts, graphs, years, dice.
Get back home, I tell myself

just as I’m telling you, now.
It’s good to get home
and slip back into bed,
thank the body beside you there,

or inside you once, or still,
or knocking gently at the door
until you say “come in.”
No one knocks here in my office.

The thin gray carpet will outlast
foot traffic, and fire.
Look, it’s already so late—
I’ve turned every switch on

and it’s still dark.
One lamp is made of alabaster,
it fills the room with a cold diffuse light,
and the stone stays cold to the touch.

I touch the shade to stay awake.
Piled on the desk like this, the charts stare
back up at me, and the numbers
begin to look like what I imagine

maggots to be, peristaltic telescoping
movements, barely ontological.
Sometimes I get so tired,
and afraid, I lie down right here.

I lie down on the dirty carpet,
the tables gathered
into a makeshift cushion
beneath a folded sweater.

At home, I have no carpets,
just floors installed inhabitants ago.
To keep the wood from splintering,
I use whatever I can find:

electrical tape, duct tape—
it all spools out so quickly.