I was not one of them. But I watched the users use.
Chantelle used only when she waitressed, part of her
self by the ice machine, smoking a cigarette,
while another part was bending over a stranger,

flattening a tablecloth, setting down a plate of
bronzed veal. Charlie the bartender drank no alcohol. He used
through the eye, and at forty the eye was terrible.
It is a city I remember only at night. I kept waking

up while the chefs chopped fish bodies into neat,
unnaturally square portions. And the kitchen smell
of yesterday&rsquo;s mashed food, sprayed clean from the sinks.
The ghost in the walk-in, telling me he&rsquo;s cold.

Charlie the bartender, already there when I arrived.
I watched him touch the needle to his blinking face.
He&rsquo;d brace the eye with two fingers: a jeweler&rsquo;s glass.
Nothing was itself alone. In this way, it all grew larger.

David Keplinger

Magnification

"An Insistent and Eager Harmoniousness to Things"

View from Outside

Wave

David Keplinger

"Even a hint of green:" Poetry from Milkweed Editions, Winter/Spring 2018

Magnification

"An Insistent and Eager Harmoniousness to Things"

View from Outside

Wave