Self Portrait as a Gorgeous Tumor
The idea of breakfast in bed
versus the sloppy practice:
thumb the soft peach and the nap splits open,
the wet surface sister to the glossed grape,
the shining plum, the nectarine
with its faint veins,
all that clusters and spreads
seeds with a hint
of more to come.
I watch the ceiling
for cracks, a water stain
a new territory
to mark with dragons, to demarcate
the unknown with known designations.
Glazed in fluoridated water
like a red wheelbarrow, I am
in the hot tropics of Florida,
where the geckos on fine, invisible hairs
Velcro across
the bathroom window,
and so much depends
on the polished and perfunctory
hanging over all of us
the chandelier promise
of a one way trip over and out
to the happy kingdom
where the princess sleeps and sleeps
and no one registers
the slow explosion
of sawdust, feathers, glitter.
Floating Wolf
