She has stopped cleaning the toilet,
making the bed,
used to her own scent and expecting no other.
She has taken to reading the phone book
looking for familiar names. Putting
her life into perspective
makes her think of Dali and she pours
another drink,
marvels how the walls melt into the indoor/outdoor,
how all her doors open out and never in.
Trees fly past windows
trailing rubber tires, wings
beating to the rhythm of her own slow heart.
She makes a wide circle round the livingroom rock
thankful it sheds some light.
Snowshoe-feet make it to the bar where
she pours another drink.
The snow is deeper here
reaching to her knees and
she lifts high
not fooling anyone,
she tells herself.
When you tongued your mother in innocence
you set yourself up for this;
the bump on your head as she pushed you away
nothing compared to the corner of guilt that caught you
in the heart.
Her mother has been following her
her whole life. She is
the weasel that is night
slinking over the horizon;
she is the burning of liquor down
your throat;
she is your throat
tight and full of slime.
She coughs
willing the phlegm to drip away like Dali's clocks.
Time, she thinks, looking,
should start at three.
Her edematous fingers drop the glass
as she stares at her ghosts.
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