Approximations
Waking up in a borrowed room, in a body
borrowed for a time, in a time
borrowed and hardly used
I remember how light
my head becomes when the boys overtaking us
in the alley tickle me with guns
running them down my spine, then my hip
How I levitate, the force of a scream suppressed
lifting me up and up!
And the way it gets dark when strange men
pound on my door at night
shouting “Open up, or we’ll break it in!”
Right before the war, I’d wake up in bed
dreaming of another bed, body in it exposed
bone by bone, like a radiograph
through a brilliance, an explosion
tearing at the membranes
that ensconce the sleeper
Close, yet not
an exact match, like a rhyme in a poem
you compose posthaste, lines
blurred by terror
