I wake in a clot of darkness. When the third rooster crows, I hear the
werewolf jump over the neighbor’s fence. It grunts and paces outside
the door, sniffing out the scent of our dreams. The werewolf seeps in
and eats my father’s dreams. But he can’t eat mine. Not while I’m
still awake.
Her back is turned. The head kerchief covers her hair as if she should
be ashamed she has any. She keeps stirring the pot on the stove, but
I know only chicken feet float in that soup. The dust in the room is a
thousand years old and keeps rising to her ankles, to her knees.
Always, everything George
For George Vasilievici, 1978-2010
George passes by the beggar child who cries coins on the sidewalk.
His room has four walls, four entrances and no exit. The moths pour
from the mattress into his mouth. George juliennes his onion love, tears
streaming down his face. He sees his own mother carrying him in her
womb in a red lacquered casket. On the balcony, George laughs at
himself: the tall awkward tassel dangling at the end of the scarf.
I skate on the rim of the half-empty glass. Under my feet, thin skins
of sound peel from the edge and lift into the air. The hand raises the
glass to the light. The nose sniffs the wine. The wrist gives it a whirl.
Where would I rather fall: into the abyss of the floor, or into the dark
mouth that waits?
