I don’t know what scares me more:
Tony’s dream of sculpting the giant head
or the blood on the pillowcase.
Or the three OKs spray painted in the street:
yellow, blue, black
like the backward progress of a bruise.
And the mark on the window where a bird crashed.
How it looks like a kiss with feathers stuck to it.
That’s what I am: a man looking through a crash print
thinking it a kiss.
And the little brown bird shaking its head.
And how after you die I’ll probably eat chocolate again.
And shrimp.
Carefully pulling off the tiny legs,
piling them on the side of my plate.
I’ll hear the ocean again, tugging.
Licking its lips.
I’ll lie in a hammock again.
I’ll hear rowboats knock against the pier
even when there are no rowboats near.
No rowboats no rowboats no rowboats near.
I think again this year I didn’t get the bulbs deep enough.
Mostly my friends left town
then so did I. I tried to look on it
as an opportunity like the start
of daylight saving time.
And how in his dream the giant head starts talking.
For this pain, for that pain murmur the syrups
on the bathroom shelf as if that’s what any of us wants.
How my aunt finally just put gravel in a cake.
How the snow tussles against the trees
like Death in Emily Dickinson.
Wolves eat mostly mice all winter.
Something long and gleaming, cold and steel introduced.
I love how the wind snatches away the cloud’s mask
as if that’s what any of us wants.
How actuality splits open like an orange
within a symbolic universe of filthy, churning waters.
Sticky sweet, full of seeds.
Last night I dreamt again of thrashing
and you on the far shore.
By what manner is the soul joined to the body?
How my parents offered no warning
that day I stuck my fork into the socket.
The worst part was liking it, the burst bulb of my head.
You’ll be fine, the costly, frosty voice
intoned above me. Sure, I thought,
Can you bring back my dog? What do you know
about broken violins? All those years of tension
then they just split apart.