A Lean-to at the End of the Galaxy
You fire a fiction deep into my brain
By the dishwasher door gaping to accept
This evening’s dirtied plates.
It detonates.
I am unrecognizable to myself
As I am unknown to you
And the shockwave from the wordblast
Drives out all other sound.
I’ve often written myself a place,
Out back, in the scrap woods,
Among devoured pines
And slack pools red with leaf rot
But I have no home
Among the otters’ dens
Littered with the leavings
Of their frigid dinners.
Although it’s colder there
There’s time to build
A shelter out of limbs and sticks
Through which the wind can come from outer space
And brush my scrambled face.
The stove clock ticks its way
Toward zero. I must be careful
Through the tripwires.
Moonlight slips a floor of glass
Between the doorway and the bed
And when I walk on it
It cracks.
