the nightmare is over: i wake up with heartburn. i open my mouth and a large red flower blooms out of it, demure, but shuddering with fire. in the nightmare, i shot him in the head. it looked like he died, but as soon as i turned my back, there he was again, bloody & lurching. the frame: awful stalker flick whose final "he's-not-really-dead!" twist never stops twisting. the dream, like a gas which expands to fill its container, ran away from the gory invader. the gun went off again and again, each report as loud as the next, sharp, sure sounds that ricocheted off the walls of sleep.
spring is going to be here one of these nights, just show up and sniff around. in an old backpack i've carried around for years, i found my old arrowhead necklace. thought i'd lost it on block island with that starfish & my copy of anne mccaffrey's "dragonsinger." then the summer, with blackflies and the hard gaze of the atlantic hidden under the beatific spangles of sun. i want to crush the summer as it dies in a mortar made just for it, crush the summer into ashy orange dust & rail it in the dead of winter. february's almost over. gray clouds flee toward the curve of the horizon, become swallowed by the vanishing point.
your life's going to change, yeah yeah. your phone's gonna ring or you're gonna need that pack of cigarettes. can't stay in the house forever. can't sit in the kitchen listening to old coltrane & drink wine until you're sloppy. can't replace the human need to communicate with talking to the cats. or maybe i'm just not trying hard enough. can do anything if i put my mind to it.
nothin' else to say.
i'll whistle you out.
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