In the hospital I stared at the scars
on my wrists, as though I might levitate. …
The blood had flowed freely from my left
wrist, snaking around my arm, then
slowed to a drip. Stopped. (Thanks, God.)
I saw drops of blood on the bathroom floor,
the dog licking them up. Eventually I heard
voices in my head (all negroid at first,
soothing and seemingly truthful as the blues
by Son House, encouraging me
to have sex with my wife—as if
they wanted to watch—then a mix of
humorous voices, some homos, some women,
increasingly scary, mocking the world, my
stream-of-consciousness with sewage).
Punchline to a joke from childhood:
“It was sewerside.”
The two most distinctive voices I
nicknamed: Evil Fairy, Confident Guy. “For I am
talking to Roger Fanning.” Confident Guy
always starts with “for,” Charlton Hestonesque.
Evil Fairy laughs, slapping her forehead in astonishment.
Then came the voices I was afraid
to name: voice of God, voice of the Devil
telling me I was in Hell. Eating sounds.
“You might as well pray to Batman,”
one voice said. Then came the images:
a man and a woman doing it doggy
style, Jesus sticking out his tongue
at me, a guy kicking his heel up
to mime the medicine “kicking in.” It
happens when I’m lucky: a dreamless
delicious Lithium sleep comes over
me. Or God intervenes. Or (excuse
the cliché, I’m sick) the big cat
Nick gets tired of teasing
a mouse (me).