This Closing Book

is the loft window flying from its hinges
into the eye of a hurricane, the envelope

your sister pierced with a metal knife
and never answered, the briefcase chained

to a dead man's wrist. For no apparent
reason, the blender jams like a blues

musician inside the glass paperweight.
Some days you watch a quartered apple

turn brown and forget the missing pieces
on your chess set. Truth is you never read

the instructions on how to bait the white
queen with a black bishop or why the safety

latch unscrews in time. At a flutter
of the afterword, soldiers disappear,

horses kick the barn door open. There are
letters that remain etched deeply into

your palm, the vowels shaped like prickly
pears. These are not one of them, and

you are not holding the correct warranty
for this product. Documents are easily

misplaced between pages 13-109, the weather
subject to misinterpretations like elephants.

At this hour, the ventriloquist is in bed.
His recurrent dream: this book closing.

_______________________________________________________________________

Something Like Blood

Remember the tongue in your ear
at midnight, the smell of a brown
bag bursting because your favorite
dog is gone and the moon hangs,
a frisbee against blackwashed wall.

Yesterday morning your mother
came. The blue puppies on
the cereal box shook a premonition
on the coffee table: there'll be
an earthquake in five minutes,
rough little paws that scrape
asphalt in six, then hunger, like cats
on a brick wall, tails flicking
a fight for the carcass in the street.

In dreams you'll keep shouting: _Fetch!_
the way a handkerchief flaps in the wind.
This is the street where crows fly low
and the leash in your hand is a dead
weight, limp as the body under

the tires of her car. And she only
wanted to bring you fresh apple pie.

_______________________________________________________________________

To that Disquieting Presence in the Bathroom Mirror

i.

Don't just stand there; say something.

ii.

When I hit my head on a low beam or stub a toe,
you're suddenly there:

a mutant extension of the shower curtain.

iii.

My ex-husband said you were beautiful.

He: the grammar errors in my dream journal,
constant inquiries into _the other woman_.

And confessions about alcohol problems (mine), bouts of color blindness (his).

iv.

Prophesy of cobwebs over your right shoulder:

I should donate my Miss Muffet face towel.

It is a relic,
like that mangy toothbrush you use nightly.

v.

Liquid soap is distracting; it's difficult not to digress
into that slight widening

of your left eye

every time you enunciate the word _orgasm_
between parentheses.

vi.

I am convinced about not being all here—

unlike you

who are always there when I come in
to wash my hands.

Are you dangerous around children or goldfish?

vii.

In the fairy tale, there was a queen, seven dwarves
and a hunted girl called Claustrophobia

who ate the poisoned blueberry tart (not hers).

In real life, there is only this cracked mirror. You.