Val Dering Rojas
When the Morphine Wears Away ☊When the morphine wears away
there is a room with a metal door-- it's creaking open secretly as I sleep. There is a room with a metal door that isn’t really a room at all. As I sleep, it’s hot as a furnace. That isn’t really a room at all: it is a box. It's hot as a furnace-- bare flame burning. It is a box with a rocking chair, rocking, bare flame burning, in the corner, a crib. With a rocking chair, rocking, motherless and babyless, in the corner, a crib-- you cannot enter this room. Motherless and babyless in the dead quiet of night, you cannot enter this room because this door is too small. In the dead quiet of night, it's creaking open secretly because this door is too small when the morphine wears away. Recurring Dream
I am alone
standing in a room where nothing is where it should be where even the fireplace has moved. Standing in a room wondering where my belongings are where even the fireplace has moved, now everything the color of skin. Wondering where my belongings are-- the green chairs, the clock, the cats-- now everything the color of skin: I remember where I am. The green chairs, the clock, the cats in an apartment, in the living room. I remember where I am and it’s all backwards. In an apartment, in the living room everything has been rearranged and it’s all backwards. This isn’t the life we shared. Everything has been rearranged where nothing is where it should be, this isn’t the life we shared, I am alone.
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Acceptance
Her mirrored heart--
the betrayal of it as it says save, as it says despair. The betrayal of it snagging every gobbet as it says despair instead of hero. Snagging every gobbet with tusk and dagger-- instead of hero, mortal flesh and rib. With tusk and dagger she cracks open mortal flesh and rib and spins a tornado. She cracks open a magnum of chaos and spins a tornado of light and gravity. A magnum of chaos on the earth below of light and gravity-- it’s a mosaic ball. On the earth below hope pushes back-- it’s a mosaic ball slowly accelerating. Hope pushes back as it says save, slowly accelerating her mirrored heart. What Euripides Knew
Happiness is brief. It will not stay. God batters at its sails. ~Euripides
A cage is love, is a mouth that sings the O in tongue, of expose, of now. Of the color bitten, of golden wings, breastbone breaking to lay open what aches. A cage of the swollen belly, of the lover twice left, of the myth of Gods, of bindings: vaulted sky, surface of sea, saltwater lips-- mandible unhinged by silence, that bitter stone. |
