-
oh and,
she kept getting brighter
as the evening wore on -
but then I awoke
and your hypnotic breathing was
hot against my neck -
She was sitting by the light of a hanging bulb at a square table. From Where I stood at the door all the tiles on the floor seemed to converge upon her at the other side of the room. I stepped lightly, putting one foot in front of the other, always forward but never loudly, never loudly enough to break her trance or cut the moment like the grout that divided up the tiles. I peered over her shoulder. She was diligently cutting the covers off of hardcover books books that sat docile in a pile where her feet knocked with an incessent rhythm against the legs of her chair.
“Why are you cutting off their covers?”
“The words can’t breathe with these covers suffocating them” she said, depositing a cover onto the pile that read, “The Brothers Karamazov” in crimson stitching against a pale yellow. It was well worn around its edges. -
when I stir I’m
half asleep but
when I dream I’m wide awake -
I’m tracing
pacing sidewalk cracks
in my sleep
so where can I begin
to understand
what makes the cracks so perfect?
I lack (so much)
appreciation for the place the
breaks have here -
and god said, ” .” -
my radiator is leaking
if I turn it off
the room drops to zero
but if I leave it on
I can’t sleep for the drip
drip
drip of the water -
the million little worlds
held in capsules in the plastic bottle
(sitting listless on the shelf)
beckon with their essences
and
sing lessons through the memories
I have spent my time collecting -
in the light you appear to be
so complete and so together
but when you sleep I think
your head floats freeuntethered .
-
Does nobody understand?"
James Joyce
