In my
nightmare
I forget how to
explain “pathetic
fallacy.” Ev’ryone
waits. My grand-
mother listens
patiently, wounded
by the table. It is late;
the coldest of my
tentacles which
lives beneath my
ring finger re-
tracts as we
avoid the chicken
gel around the
island whereup-
on a chicken
body.
Life is
tough for jelly.
Willie Nelson knows;
he asks the window
if it’s crying or just
misted from that
cornet playing
in the song itself,
a Second Mouth.
The glass of an
idle listener left
by the narrow sill
and in it half-a
lemon. Nelson’s
window rubs
the rain; mine
rearranges
sprinklers on its
inside
face,
the cries of
young grass being
sprayed with
Zinc. Then in
my dream I
lecture her some
more. She’s never
cowed by earth’s
receding; “it’s a
smiley-face we
just lost track of.”
It’s as though she
were a mouse in-
side a book be-
hind a sink and
not a woman
marching in
her violet taupe in-
side or
going out
again in her
clothing. She
goes to get the
heavy cream. “Hey
look, is that an
eardrop?” I ask
no one in her
bathroom thinking
as I pinch it o-
ceans pour forth
porcelain in God’s
mansion like wrong-
headedness
secreting chlorine
cream. Because
from every fixture
buzzing sounds im-
passive bank on
us;
a 4.5 hits
in the night or
what a fur hydrangea-
colored bathmat
in my shoes.
“One day,”
I can’t say
when, an armor
will enfold the
town but every
outside planet
every boot-
kicked boot-
height lantern
shall show smoke
collecting all
about our ankles.
