Interiors

You can always recede further,
tunnel deeper.

Darkness is relative
where backlit screens abound.

Today everyone is inside
the cold.

We say, “What are you watching?”

We’re bingeing a show about
a living doll that replaces a dead child.

They’re bingeing a show about
vampires and witches.

All afternoon, the episodes
accumulate like supernatural snow.

Replacement Parts

Riding in a taxi on a grey day.

It seems everything is under construction
behind a mesh veil of soot and scaffolds.

A new city is emerging so gradually
no one will notice, the way they say
a body replaces all its cells every seven years.

It will feel as if nothing has changed,
and yet none of this – not a bit of us –
will remain.

A different woman will be riding
in a different taxi on a cold but sunny day.

Tragic Sweater

In the moths
that followed

the ________,

she found
herself slowly
unraveling.

Spider Soup and Magic Rocks

I did it —

drained the shallow
bowl of sweet, sharp
spider’s liqueur,

then pocketed
the magic rocks
from the scholar’s library.

Stole his dusty memories,
replacing them with ordinary
stones from the yard.

Didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t stop to think.
Didn’t think I had it in me.

But I did.

Everyone into the Pyramid

Grab your pets and your iPads,

your altars, your avatars
and alter egos.

I drink the last light.

I am the hours that fly.

Take your sex toys and your almonds
dusted with pink Himalayan salt.

Don’t forget the Book of Passwords.

Everyone into the pyramid now.