Duckface Siegal for the Whack,
image by Daniel Y. Harris
Sun on 19
(for s—y)
These dreams weeding beetles lately
and the ice record cicadas fall,
spun in Rapunzel's straw gold hair.
In a circus of mice and jeweled raspberry tart
found by the fuzz at a carnie robbery.
You folded a paper heart in the passing
hands of my life's gas bubble. I trace
your gumption on beaded granulates,
rock salt hindu dots, Barbicide sugar cubes,
anodyne polka dawns, red bingo markers
on these trick mirrors my life has arranged.
A trinity knot will wind our knuckles in pearl
white wishbones and fool's gold round
the synapses' paeans, a higher calling sticks
to the ceiling in smoked plume notes,
your blood jewels soften in your neck
and the water becomes an elastic condom.
These dreams weed beetles
beading minutes in morse green.
Cow's cancer skin, elderberry moths
spotted with rubber fido's window-
watching-leukemia. Paper hearts of my life
in a panel binder Giallo red, you are one
(or the other) in a confessional phone booth
with brass rings, the deja vu color, before
I flew burning as a mail carrier
toward Icarus in roller skates.
The pop rock gravel steams in roseate oil,
stained glass beverages and thimble
microphones behind parcels greased
in rorschach wings.
What do you see? Sow my eyes shut
with the Ripper's scapular and the saints
will float in catatonia's slop bucket of
hypnagogia pearls. Finned dispersion tips
on a single point. In the Dice Cup
of seltzer oceans painted
in Jacob's yellow star
A form parallel to the Yellow Wallpaper
templates where hazel moons slide
as eyes of olive rosary beads beam,
your heart is bending in ridges
of a music box handle's shadow
Spindles, clockwork wings spattered
in a cobalt bird’s explosion in the child’s
crayola marshes where deja vu
has a swiveling mustache.
—John Thomas Allen
