2 Halves of 1 Ear

I find a piece of glass

in my knee when I lie down

for bed in the starchy green

sheets that mama laid for me. 

Her melancholy tale of preteen

girls swallowing live scorpions while

they gallivanted in the woods still

so haunting as I reach inside

and aim to retch the fragment free. 

When the shard breaks loose from

my flesh

inky blots of her black paint

pour from me in place of the blood I've

never really had. 

My husband appearing beside me even

though it will still be three years before

I am married. 

Meanwhile the plane flies its never-ending passage 

overhead as I am forced to question if

the existence of anyone else truly

exists, or if I am just one, strange, lonely,

robot floating along in this whimsical 

abyss. Before the aliens interrupt, telling me to just shut the fuck up, and believe. 

Papa's voice rings in my ears, mixing

with the scratching and panting sounds

from the doglike creature outside my door, as I try to delight in sexual intercourse with the replica of man. 

Instead, I remember the sisters who got lost 

in that Carolina swamp, sucking 

on the meaty pulps of insects for

sustenance. 

Bones pushing out of my feet as I walk upon the monsoon tide, wearing the bluest shoes mama once made for me. 

I digress before I fade, and then I fall, tripping into sleep before it realizes it's even latched on. 

Every night it comes the same, in a milky humming twilight, in a world with moons as big as pies. 

Good die. Days unsheathed. Wallaby. 

For what is a dream with a really neat end—

tang maroon upside clown tree fort round.