a golden shovel feat. Faulkner’s Dewey Dell
In the night last night upside down I
woke to dream half dream had
eaten steak before bed & a
woke w/ a beef-induced nightmare.
Again I roamed the cellar, where once
an ear grew on the back of a lab rat. This is true, I
must explain, disconnected from thought,
a human ear fully functional, I
mean there was no meaning was
syncopating syllables or language awake
in the breakdown of sound, but
for stutter the halted staccato dictated I
must move faster, but couldn’t.
This was not a metaphor for loneliness. See,
I have trouble shedding lives &
was raised to be polite. My legs couldn’t
run w/ the speed of rivers or feel
the sides of mountains pulling as I
stumbled. Sidewalk slabs couldn’t
demarcate my breath & its his breath I feel
on my neck, baby hairs asleep on my legs oh the
softness. When a prickled bed is not a place of rest: search hard under
this narrative: a viable six year old me
w/my after school family, pawned house to house &
after school gramps groans in his rocker: no I
don’t want to sit on your lap. A girl couldn’t
be raised in a family of men, sky a darker tinge, think
mama: where do you bury rage & what
are you tired? You said, This is the world we live in. I
retreat to my room, build forts, was
innocent in light reversed through Big Bird curtains & I
felt safe again beneath spread cotton. I couldn’t
make sense of the mirrored room of love, think
half feral, half divine, no lawn but tumultuous river of
hanging vines, redundant flower seller poling left/right, my
god, are these candles set in bowls or their reflections on water? Name
the heavy machines men make to smooth things. I
forgot the trot is a pace not a dance. Couldn’t
clog walkers slip on umbrella puddles? Even
if the story leads to where the path crumbles, I think
this means I am multitudinous I am luminous I
reach through volumes to touch child of sidewalk grime, am
there somersault vaulting a metal pole meant as handrail, a
knot I might untangle if I can trace where the beginning is, girl.