Today a cloud candelebra knocks at my window.
I see past their blanket disguise
and draw the shades,
followed by a second more permanently in my head set
of shades, but the candle air ghost fingers pull them
like a small hungry dog.
Like a monster stretching passionate
from a blacked out open door on the
filmy pages of a movie I regret seeing, if only for how I am
burning morning cloud cover onto the same reel,
they tug relentless at my eyelash heels.
This is painful. The red marks, definitely forming.
People will surely ask what kind of abuse I've received.
What kind of live-ins are devilish enough,
have small enough hands?
They will ask. You can't let the kids mistake eyelashes
for rope swings They will say. Did your fingers
go terribly amiss while shaving?
They will shudder. To keep hyberbole out of the room,
I will have to interject. No, I will say,
the glowy clouds poked pores in my window,
said I needed to breathe,
tried to tell me I can fly today, tried
to see what a trapped universe looks like, tried
to make me talk about all the life swirling in even
one retina, tried to make me look at them
like a crown or expensive painting,
Succeeded
dragging me from the room where I dream. The room
full of paintbrushes, swingsets, and women with better names
than my hands have given them.
