XII

There is a kind and like-minded thing that lies beside you while you sleep.

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XI

How many times does a woman laugh
In a day?

The survey I read
Said twenty.

How do they know

Where one laugh ends,
The next begins?

Can the animals be taught to laugh?

Can machines be?

Or what about weeping?

To hear my mate laugh recalls
This world is in every way perfect

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I was so afraid -
yes, more afraid
than I have ever
ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever
ever ever ever ever
ever ever been
before, ever.

Or am I being melodramatic again?

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IX

Van Helsing unfastened the coffin lid,
peeled the crucifix from the bone-white brow.
He pulled the garlic from the rust-flecked mouth,
careful not to touch the teeth.
He stitched back on the severed head,
and he blotted up evidence of Holy Water,
and, full of care, he heaved free the hammer-frayed stake,
like Excalibur from the nameless stone.

Rolling up his sleeves, he said:

“Now here comes the hard part.”

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VIII

She looked at the floor and wall and was uncomfortable,
and I did not smile.
I did not say her name.

She told me her family secret,
and I made a joke of it,
and we laughed.

She spat and snarled
and made claws.
I shrugged and looked away.

God, how can I ever atone for my sins?

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“Look, we’re moving to Europe. To London, actually. That’s where my wife’s from. I hear it’s great over there. People keep telling me I’ll love it. I think it’s really gonna be great. But so, listen, we just want it out of the house. I’ll tell ya, why don’t you just come on over and take the goddamn thing for free?”

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Dandelion, understanding,
stands and stretches
into the hot air
and cheerfully, happily,
is annhiliated,
asundered,
drawn to Heaven. 

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I have killed.
I’m sure to do it again.
I was breast-fed till I was 18.
It’s my mother’s fault.
I replay vividly my grandmother’s death.
Each morning. It rouses me.
In my quiet room, I plan the rape and slaughter
of thousands, near and far.

When I was a child,
the sound of our dog yelping at the window,
as we left for family outings …

… well, I could not but burst into tears.

It has never occurred to me that I truly exist -
- not until days ago.
I am willing to believe it may be true.

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I note a lump inside me,
in my body -
in the thorax, in fact -
in my chest -
just shy
of the sixth rib.

It throbs.

It is clearly alive.

It is an eager, pupate lepidoptera.

Or, no, it is a slim lizard, legs bundled, incubating.

Or, no, it is a cradling mammal perhaps, coiled like an ammonite,
fragile paws over sightless eyes,
praying for its life.

Or, no, i see clearly now it is a gleaming spring
of terror,
its breathing a rhythmic flexing of its own strength,
preparing to stand out into the world,
where it will do infinite mischief beyond all recall.

I have treasured it so,
loved it so, this thing,
and i accept that i shall treasure it always,
even as it clears my breastbone and murders us all.

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Daedalus – with only one wing done -
fled before a mob
determined to string him up
and piñata the hell out of the man.
Running for his life,
he donned the single wing and,
triple-jumping to the cliff’s edge,
launched himself,
leaving the killers marooned.

As he made into the open air,
wing outstretched on one side,
on the other,
inadequate hand flapping,

he understood that all
the wisdom of science and reason
would not support him.

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