I am a caged animal.
My face is against the metal
and the oncoming storm flashes, threatening.
I lie on my back,
contained, out of control, contained.
I moan and mangle pilled bedsheets
that wrap-strangle my legs.
But kicking feels good, the thump and whomping.
I am always stirred by a naked woman
at my door. I will not let her in,
I want to.
She sits down on the carpet with her
warm back against the wall. Her shadow still,
outside the door.
I return to the opening and stare out at the distant, ashy horizon.
(I don’t really ever sleep, more like breathe deeply until the anxiety simmers.)
The lines are flat and motionless
but I feel the rumbling in my chest
like a growl. I will die alone, probably.
My visitor leaves without saying anything. Anything.
Just sits in his chair, then he’s gone.
When he leaves he leaves what looks like some
oily, important car part that fell off when it jumped a pothole.
I don’t ever touch it or move it.
If he wants it he’ll have to come and get it himself.
I want it.
I know it is for me.
But I don’t know anything.
I keep wondering about that naked woman.
*************************************
I break my plate on the floor, I spin
around, devlish, until I slip
on pieces. I sit on my bed,
I slam my back on the mattress, the sheets on
the floor. I kick the door hard until
the shadow moves,
slide down the wall and pull at my elbows,
looking at the ceiling, the ceiling, the wall.
I find that if I tilt my head back
and press my skull into my palms
it deadens something, my senses, and I can sleep.
Two times, and I don’t wake up on the third.
What would my mother think?
*************************************
My mother dreams that I will come visit
and bring her grandchildren.
I run in her backyard with the dog.
With the purpling sky, my wife and I
come in and pick up the littlest, all of us out of breath.
We pray and eat rice and shish-kabob on skewers.
There is so much laughter that it
takes us two hours to eat.
I dry the dishes she washes
and she cries a little because of the sadness
that is no longer around anywhere, just love.
The night bends down with board games
and movies, the screen door keeping out
mosquitoes, but letting coolness in.
At the end, in fresh sheets, everyone
beds and falls into deep, dreamless sleep.
Only breath and moonlight,
only breath and heat.
