Poem for Dean

Piles of water-damaged scrapbooks, protected only on one side from the flood, the pages fanned and thickened stalks of a wet cornbroom.

The headlights of the car sweep the ceiling, striating the stained plaster through the blinds.

The match flares, the hymnal closes, the door creaks.  The match flares, the hymnal closes, the door creaks.  The match flares, the hymnal closes, the door creaks.

This motel sits by an ocean which is tossed rough in a high wind, and are those even the words, I ask you, and you smile in the quiet car.

Dial tone.

The place I stop, and you begin, like a dotted line on the highway.

The uniform clap of boots to pavement, some sedate machinery trailing off the thoughts we used to hate, and now find necessary.

My mother, crying in the bathroom until she made herself vomit.

Adam's dull and resentful heartbeat.

An echo.

Terrified, I cover my mouth with my hand, and hold my breath in the closet, until my chest aches.

Green moss dancing slow over the rocks at the glassy part of the river.

Panphobia.

You've got mail.

The letter opens with a brutal tearing of the wax seal, like the lips of a virgin.

APPLAUSE.  APPLAUSE.  APPLAUSE.  APPLAUSE.

I would turn away from him, because I'm afraid he thinks I'm ugly.  So I try to stare him down.

The orchid never blooms.