The plastic doorway sips at the cold

and the trouble with patience

is color, the way the moon

slips in and out of its texture.

Everything is quiet in the moat,

each number you sneak from my mouth

rolls its r’s like a child discovering

moisture on the back of a song.

A ring sits on a window’s ledge.

A dog is near. A noose is slipped.

A log in the distance finds melody,

finds comfort distended by the stomach.

Just as I never recovered my father

from his ashes I never plan

on coiling my peers into lengths.

This cot has a rhythm the night

mimics with a slow rolling

and when the radio is tipped

the static whispers the prayers of ghosts.

I wish I had something original to report,

something my lengthened peers

could coil in the corner

of a dim-lit yet warming room.

The dog rattles its tags,

shits a bullet on the hardwood floor.

 

Moon, I run a dungeon you’ve seen from above.

Inside I mold each plastic keepsake

the tide removes from the candles’

shattered circle on the beach.

Moon, my name is Simon.

I’m 31 years old.

I hate the feeling of breath behind the nose,

believe glitter comes from the sea.

I’ve seen you behind a snow globe,

freed your lung from spring’s hinge.

Moon, it’s important that when we sleep

we uncover the madness each day

steals from the garden of our hands.

It’s important that when we whisper

to the dark that we never mention its darkness.

Moon, this isn’t for you.

This is for your likeness.

I have a shovel it painted with night.

Have a belief your fading color will stain.

 

It’s here by the dead shoots,

here where my moniker dissolved,

that I finally remember a past tense

like a rake building tunnels for mice

or a chain connecting my torso to the moon.

It’s here that the chants of children

echo the balded bowl of dawn

and you, daffodil, have a plastic

horse you’ve yet to mount.