Nervous System
Make a list
of everything that’s
ever been
on fire –
Abandoned cars
Trees
The sea
Your mother burned down to the skeleton
so she could come back, born back from her bed, and walk
around the
……….. house again, exhausted
……….. in slippers
What else?
Your brain
Your eyes
Your lungs
*
When you look down
inside yourself
what is there?
You are a walking bag of surgical instruments
shining from the inside out
and that’s just
today
Tomorrow it could be different
When I think of the childhood inside me I think of sunlight
dying on
……….. a windowsill
The voices of my friends
in the sunlight
All of us running around
outside our
deaths
*
Someone is here
to see you
again
Someone has come a long way with their arms out in front of
them
………. like a child
walking down a hallway
at night
Make room for them –
they’re very tired
I wish I could look down past the burning chandelier inside
me
where the language begins
to end
and
down
by Michael Dickman
from The End of The West
Copper Canyon Press 2009