All through the night the storm raged and your eyes looked blankly through the window
at me
I let you in
"Where are the others,
the ones I have forgotten," I said earnestly
They passed through,
took more than they wanted,
sliced their words with shiny tongues,
cut me up
slapped me down
pushed me around and around
A dance , really
"I loved you so."
The days when bones rattled
within the house like plumbing,
beating deep hollow basement rhythms,
the radiators' endless croakings and sad poppings...
The dying yard light flickers a silent movie scene
with me
and a backdrop of tree branches blowing
goblins running close to the camera
howling
the coyotes change their costume once again
they are dandies, hopelessly lovable and
the action rolls on and on beyond clouds of dry ice,
the burning flesh of fans.
"Try not to breathe it," the starlet says with great emotion, and don't think!
Try not to think!
There are bones in here. I hear them clacking across the hardwood floor
at night, long-pacing with pendulous arms
swinging about, startled by the footlights, their empty sockets
staring this way and that
this way and that
as they weave drunkenly about
blandly looking for their cue
to dance with me