Zero Sum Games: After Seeing Blair Witch

When Martin Gallub went away
we opened his house to see
how he lived as a solitary man.
We know how he nursed
friendships with single women
but couldn't do
as other men would.

The movie shows us
people as they are,
screamers and pishers,
cursors and slime bearers who
joke about their bodies.
They all looked like children to him.

We saw how his bedroom
was filled with magazines
that lined the South side of the bed.
Old unused things
were never thrown away so we could
trace the evolution of his years.
We saw how he lived in the cold.
Piles of sweaters
scrambled over the broken desk.

But paintings and drawings
marched over the walls like
soldiers crammed into troop ships
coming to shore in the war. Words
and pictures embalmed him. But we
don't know what war. We don't know
where they were bound.