Are You Useful to Anyone?

 I'm drowning silverfishin hot water baths wheninstead I could be raisingthe world's most eligibleinfant. Yew fucken betchthe man sitting in the centerof the sidewalk hollers.I hear wasted uterus, dumbfat flamingo. My uncle Dannysends money each monthto a teenager in Kenyawho now has three goatsnamed Little Danny. O to bea human who can producea list of artistic influences.O to enter the 24-hourCVS and somehow resistthe lurid aroma of apologia.My waking life is my ancestor'srevenge fantasy so I smileas I pay the electric bill. ______Nicole Steinberg is the author of Getting Lucky (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2013) and two chapbooks available in 2014: Undressing from dancing girl press and Clever Little Gang, winner of the Furniture Press 4X4 Chapbook Award. Her other publications include Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens (SUNY Press, 2011) and Birds of Tokyo (dancing girl press, 2011). She's the founder of the EARSHOT reading series, based in Brooklyn, NY, and she lives in Philadelphia.