that thing i should mention
by daniel bailey
you are a baby milk snake touching my toes
sleeping like water rushing through gills
i believe in a silence at the end of the night
i have spent the night in my car
beneath telephone poles reaching
like inverted crosses toward heaven
watching upside-down miracles perform
surgery on our bodies while we sleep
i have woken up in my car to the sound of a garbage truck
backing up like a lonely trumpet; all of my reasons
for existing can be packed away inside a trumpet case.
i imagine you in the front seat reaching out
to touch the door handle, all rigid and mannequin
next to you i am an absent militia on the day the aliens arrive
what does it matter that I am not sleeping
lately, all of my dreams have occurred
in the same place with the same people
from just before i fell asleep; its like i don't know
what really happened and what I dreamt
it's strange and it's even stranger
but it's something, i guess