THE CAROUSEL TURNS
1.
I am the empty cat, burning blue
in the dead kitchen sink in the house of you.
Your flies are whispers on me
and your steak melts in the refrigerator
while the mailman knocks on the door.
He misses the bloated upholstery
of your chairs, which are bathed in
only the ghosts of lamplight, by which,
mumbling in extinct languages,
all of our grandmothers read about geometry;
the space inside a cube is not the cube
is their verdict.
2.
I am an orange tree, sleeping alone
in the broken down mule of you.
Looking at you has the taste
of frostbite on an important limb;
of anything freezer-burned
by the hands of nighttime.
Overcompensating for this, my fruit
hangs misshapen and fluorescent.
It taps on the eye, and looking at it
has the taste of paisley.
From my vantage point,
I can see a blade of grass doubled over.
Winter is coming.
3.
I am the ghost of a diver, frolicking
in the eels-nest of you. Somewhere,
between your rusted steel ribs,
a skeleton sits hunched inside a pocket of air;
I go through the wall and find his diary preserved.
On the cover he has etched lions;
they weep over a bloody herd of gazelle.
He has closed it with the word “togetherness”
1.
I am the empty cat, burning blue
in the dead kitchen sink in the house of you.
Your flies are whispers on me
and your steak melts in the refrigerator
while the mailman knocks on the door.
He misses the bloated upholstery
of your chairs, which are bathed in
only the ghosts of lamplight, by which,
mumbling in extinct languages,
all of our grandmothers read about geometry;
the space inside a cube is not the cube
is their verdict.
2.
I am an orange tree, sleeping alone
in the broken down mule of you.
Looking at you has the taste
of frostbite on an important limb;
of anything freezer-burned
by the hands of nighttime.
Overcompensating for this, my fruit
hangs misshapen and fluorescent.
It taps on the eye, and looking at it
has the taste of paisley.
From my vantage point,
I can see a blade of grass doubled over.
Winter is coming.
3.
I am the ghost of a diver, frolicking
in the eels-nest of you. Somewhere,
between your rusted steel ribs,
a skeleton sits hunched inside a pocket of air;
I go through the wall and find his diary preserved.
On the cover he has etched lions;
they weep over a bloody herd of gazelle.
He has closed it with the word “togetherness”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Art by: Eugenia Loli
