There is a girl in a room
somewhere
waiting for a diagnosis
because modern medicine cannot explain
the absence of a heart
or the cavity in her chest
She breathes only.
There is a man in an office
surrounded by windows
who does not know how he got there
or how forty years of his life
have drained through the floor
He breathes only.
[And I put three sugars in my coffee
and then three more
and then one
(in that order)
and the man with my Father’s haircut
at the table next to mine thinks
I am insane]
There is a darkness in my bedroom at night
it permeates the walls and
a beautiful girl who exists
in a New Orleans’ hotel room
is trapped far away from here
She brings me to her bed and
beckons me with love
Her embrace is like my mother’s womb
and her angelic face transforms
to skull as I fall back asleep
I become her and see her world
and her eternal, silent wandering
I breathe only
she does not.
There is a desert with sands
as golden as the crown of heaven
and in its night there is one light
running aimless and endless
across the wasteland
It is a giraffe,
on fire and hysterical
and it runs to the end
of the black desert
searching for four passengers
And we breathe only.