Glut

The whole point was getting rid of glut
for which I starved myself and lived with the heat down
and only shaved oh every five days and used
a blunt razor for months so that my cheek
was not only red but the hair was bent not cut
for which I then would be ready for the bicycle
and the broken wrist, for which—oh God—I would be 
ready to climb the steps and fight the boxes
with only nothing, a pair of shoes, and once 
inside to open the window and let the snow in
and when the fire was over climb down the icy
fire escape and drop the last twenty
feet with notebooks against my chest, bruises
down one side of my body, fresh blood down the other.

From Save the Last Dance by Gerald Stern. Copyright © 2008 by Gerald Stern. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton. All rights reserved.