I can only sign over everything, the house, the dog, the ladders, the jewels, the soul, the family tree, the mailbox. Then I can sleep. Maybe.
What a lay me down this is with two pink, two orange, two green, two white goodnights.
My sleeping pill is white. It is a splendid pearl; it floats me out of myself, my stung skin as alien as a loose bolt of cloth.
I remember the stink of the liverwurst. How I was put on a platter and laid between the mayonnaise and the bacon. The rhythm of the refrigerator had been disturbed.
Come, my pretender, my fritter, my bubbler, my chicken biddy! Oh succulent one, it is but one turn in the road and I would be a cannibal!
And thus Snow White became the prince’s bride. The wicked queen was invited to the wedding feast and when she arrived there were red-hot iron shoes, in the manner of red-hot roller skates, clamped upon her feet.
And within the house ashes are being stuffed into my marriage, fury is lapping the walls, dishes crack on the shelves, a strangler needs my throat, the daughter has ceased to eat anything...
Rejoice with the day lily for it is born for a day to live by the mailbox and glorify the roadside.
I would like to think that no one would die anymore if we all believed in daisies but the worms know better, don’t they? They slide into the ear of a corpse and listen to his great sigh.
Daisies in water are the longest lasting flower you can give to someone. Fact. Buy daisies. Not roses.
Man is a bird full of mud, I say aloud. And death looks on with a casual eye and scratches his anus.
Frog has no nerves. Frog is as old as a cockroach. Frog is my father’s genitals. Frog is a malformed doorknob. Frog is a soft bag of green.
Why are all these dolls falling out of the sky? Was there a father? Or have the planets cut holes in their nets and let our childhood out, or are we the dolls themselves, born but never fed?
Take the brown eyes of my father, those gun shots, those mean muds. Bury them. Take the blue eyes of my mother, naked as the sea...
The sky breaks. It sags and breathes upon my face. in the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies The world is full of enemies. There is no safe place.
You cutting the lawn, fixing the machines, all this leprous day and then more vodka, more soda and the pond forgiving our bodies, the pond sucking out the throb.
Father, you died once, salted down at fifty-nine, packed down like a big snow angel, wasn’t that enough?
I try to take care and be gentle to them. Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken they are impossible things to repair.
All in all, I’d say, the world is strangling.
My heart is on a budget. It keeps me on the brink.