Sailing through Cassiopeia
The sky is round because the eye is round.
A high soprano singing from the fire.
Serpentine hieroglyphics of worm tracks
through the oak.
The clear lubricious wine
that seeps from her most secret space.
Her eyes telling me it’s time to come inside.
Moments of ecstasy on the lip of terror.
The tightrope walker lives by continuance;
the trapeze artist by letting go.
I dream I’m dreaming I wake up
still dreaming.
Learning to say avoirdupois
and never saying it again.
The crow and the quail sang a duet in the fog
though never quite together.
We miss our dead friends because we’ve lost our last chance
to make them change their minds.
My conclusions end in question marks.
Say “home entertainment” eighteen times,
real fast.
by Dan Gerber
from Sailing through Cassiopeia
Copper Canyon Press