A Hook in My Mouth

For New Englanders it's all in the eyes, and maybe also in the tails of dragons. Give way to lineage and you'll only find recycled moonlight. Come, won't you? I'm just here pretending I'm alive. These heavy feet climb love's spiral staircase into a dishwater sky. Cannot we just say it plainly?

I think of boredom now all the time – a monster creeping behind wicker-rattan chairs and hanging loosely in the closet filled with black coats. I have more things to learn, yes? I can be there as early as Saturday. This ache in the emptying. That old Nihilism causing me to thrash about with a hook in my mouth.

Sitting cross-legged on the round braided rug. Old photographs of Kenya hook me like a half-moon. Mama Joan holding Joan, with Lexi's head leaning into her chest. The Rhodesian Ridgeback and her giant paws glaring at Colobus monkies high in the trees. Baba Tony stretching a smile for the camera, but also, that is just his smile. Tigoni's red dust. A chameleon wrapped around his wrist. Who calls me back? Who begs me to stay?

What if you begged?