Dogs on Wheels

"The wily lunatic is lost if through the narrowest crack

he allows the sane eye to peer into his locked universe

and thus profane it.” -Colette, The Pure and the Impure

My fingers sit wedged in the cracks of your locked uni-

verse. Your voice is the light which escapes through

spiderwebs. I break them, gasping dust. The room is built

of song lyrics, with dingy corners of adolescent politics,

whiskey's jouissance spinning down to linoleum floors.

Deep in a tunnel lined with trinkets, a dragon hunched,

eating Camels. Maybe you'd make a difficult home.

But the sparkling! The conversations like fish jumping in

tandem through the river. Looking out at the stars, the

beautiful alien women spotted posing on the moon, the

ocean's trenches echoing messages of love. In the glim-

mers, I want to risk the rare sharks that have tried to kill

us once before and untether myself from this deep-sea

diving machine.

Maybe your dreams mirror mine. Dress me in lover's

clothes and set me running at breakneck pace after you.

Rattle the lock, but don't wake the beast. You'd shake me

off your back if you knew I hover closer than just to guide

your stumbling. The delicate dance, the particles spiraling

closer and closer. Who is the black hole? What if we were

lost together?

Anonymous