As I walk into the dim room,
a movie is playing
and my mom is watching intently.
I am there but I am not there,
an ephemeral planet in the making.
A spectral vision.
A light and dark murky chiaroscuro.
An envelope.
Where is this place, this mansion, this spaceship?
Who are these people really in
this other reality?
Drowning in the refuse,
morphed back into pulp.
I can’t see for instance:
my mother’s searing invectives
my father’s unraveling tongue
This is not my home.
A breeze falls from a nearby tower and has no place to go,
I strain under the awkward weight of
a branch swarming with worms and bird droppings.
A bowl of foreign coins.
Then I walk into another room
and my sister,
a desert away,
is watching the moving images intently,
like a mirage.
Again I see my obscure picture on the screen,
holding forth in animation
Only someone else is talking.
Falling stacks of mismatched dinnerware
with nowhere to go.
Both rooms then divide and multiply
And all are foreign and cold.
Every director imbuing the action with a silver tongue.
Space is like an accordion,
but I can’t dance.
Palm trees where there should be pine.
An Undertow.
The sweet air that cant ride the curve
Or it will be killed.
Night that floats away.
Their own private paradise,
as my heart drains like sand from a shoe.
I can’t get out of there fast enough.
Until I walk another room,
And see my own movie playing,
and finally it all makes sense.
Awake to warmth and singing cells of slickness,
my skin tingles with meaning.
Everything that ever happened to me
hanging in the air.
At last time keeps its promise to itself
as my shadow slips under the threshold,
and all the little citizens of me burn.
Here I am free,
For awhile.
Until I get another hat,
Unill I find my way out of the current.
Until I realize
I can go for popcorn at any time.
And never come back.
RM Jun 2019