She used to say
"he could con Jesus off the cross"
but never said who: he
Looking past
the cracked mirror out of some-
thing - Psycho
burgeoning Perkinses in a steeplechase
around the ward
in the basin
red dwarves swirl around the gurgle
a danse macabre, your heart beats
and bleats
forget the pulsing murder
violins, your head is
a screaming chorus of harangutans
(you can't Handel) or
blasting Tchaikovsky, horns
of the dilemma
you on trapezon,
psychotropic to the clowns
flying without nets
in each exploding shard you see a segment of your self
showering fallen stars -- fireworks, unseen
looking past
the cracked mirrors where
my mother lies like The Lady of Shanghai
in scintillating ruins
Years later the wrist scars strike
out, like fossilized millipedes in limestone --
wounds so deep no time can heal
them
(I've got my own millipedes now.)
which goes against the grain
of
my
pain
you could say
every day is the bitter end
no matter what threat looms
there are things we cannot mend
worse: there are rooms within rooms
to whom it may concern
O
