in the afternoon.
bells and human voices
nesting.
trapped in the dream
about snow
in Texas.
in the afternoon.
a woman takes her love’s name
personifies the dead
bangs her head.
are we always afraid?
betrayed by my own subconscious
my eyes make dark without
bodies. long snakes hanging
from my arms by their fangs.
a child dreams of flying
by pumping her arms
as if in water.
the world gifts us
with little smoke breaks
from fake happiness.
is this all?
of course not.
we are not all addicted.
we do not all sleep in the afternoons,
[ ostracized. ]
I imagine myself as a man,
drinking scotch in the evening
and building porches.
hair squirting like flowers from my skin.
god never intended these
sleeping bodies.
never went to sleep
with a man
touching lightly with his
foot, which means
god never knew
what it feels like to
cradle your own consciousness
in a warm hive.
at 2:00 am I wake
with my mouth open,
my mind a moon still
half submerged
in the snow.
the houses where we grew up are dead.
all those little mythologized guilts.
digging up squirrel bones in the backyard.
buzzing sounds as you stalk your likeness through the trees.