Even in sleep, I can’t sleep
but am prone, paralyzed,
a plucked & boiled swan
crooked in a gelatin of savory cherries, bays—
Tak & undo hym & wash hym
& do on a spite & unarme hym fayre—
broth of sleep-aids, ethanol,
middle-age, denial, by nature
breast-sogged, habitué of dank,
mantled, melancholy pools.
Hounds raised me up,
guffaw of terror, sopped, shawled wings,
carnelian legs dangling.
Hawk dropped, the arrow struck.
Whence now the lost dreams of racing
through the old neighborhood,
flight above the treetops conked with fire?
Breasts like nuts that showed
through vesture, waist two hands might span?
O Hypnotics,
youth’s a brief convent.
Salte it, & boyle it wel in a postnet
& sesen it with a litel veynegre.
Three gilt pills mark the Apothecary’s street.
Try to hold the rue and signage as you go
about that cobweb market.
Color it with the blood:
A courtly hue & cry.