To Anyone

I hear it again,
the throbbing ache of a hand
thrust into the air,
out of the landfill,
solitary.
I have seen it more than once
in the little time I have grown:
Small bones a-mask
in the pallid, stretchy skin of a ghost.
They tell me the same things -
if I recall well -
"One small, white pellet
before she retires;
(And a fourth of this kind
just to be sure.)
Make sure she takes it."

The first of many times,
I hung myself by a thread
and floated on broken sentences
heard over the telephone.

By the second time, I learned.
I measure what I carry
in careful nods that ride on a beat,
one, two, three, one, two, three -

I am glad you are here.