trying to explain

she said she dreamt

of thugs and dogs

that chased me,

while in mine

i slept inside a human hive

inside a pyramid.

i'd rather be chased by

brooms and mops.

the cold is not be explained,

by dead songs or distant sirens

waiting for the mercy or the joke,

the sound of the universe

when nobody's home,

the paper smeared

with policies and poems,

the sentimental glow that clings

to the stones of dead empires

and faded snapshots.

-easier to float a needle

in a glass of water.

but i kept looking.

in the storm-bared roots

of stolen streams,

the trees that wintered

through the pharaohs and columbus,

stalingrad and woodstock.

crumbled forts returning to sand,

a gentle shelter for a picnic,

a place to frolic

in the spaces that

escaped attention.

i found an antler on the gravel,

he shed them in the willows

beside a shrunken pool

with black tadpoles

wriggling at the edges

and two snakes trying

to eat the same fish,

one had the head

the other the tail.

neither willing to let go,

and for a moment

it seemed to explain,

everything.