in the land of cherry pie

in the land of no regrets, with lots of cherry pie,

where the angels never cry or fall,

beyond the reach of telescopes,

it only takes an eye to see

beneath the scars and skin,

the burns and sins, to the fringe

of experience, savored or not,

flavored like oranges or reeking of steel.

i was swimming, one moonless light

and the air felt the same as the water,

tiny fishes nibbling on my toes.

the vast scent of the world

filled me from nose to spine to testicles

all the names of her i've known or wanted to, 

tumbled and worn, a fabric relaxed

to a softness unknown by days at a desk

or nights on a stool grinning at strangers

and hoping by closing that i'd pass the test,

win a ticket to morning and yawning at dawn,

pressing lips to the shoulder of the beauty i'd met.

it's a place i've never visited outside this head

played out on the back of my eyelids in a solitary bed

while crossing the border into the territory of dreams

beyond the reach of telescopes

in the land of no regrets, with lots of cherry pie,

where the angels never cry or fall

and the words spill like drops of water

from a beard of moss below a spring

glistening, cold and sweet, to cling

for a moment to the fossilized skull

of a mastodon, where a century has carved

a tiny basin, brimming, clear, and doomed

to measure out the physics of force and time

drop by sparkling drop, the rock-paper-scissors game

from which nothing material ever escapes.

it's the ethereal which lasts,

immune to the daily mundane,

the tasks and trivial pass,

like pollen dusted on a stream.

this dream persists in a place

i've never been, but felt sometimes,

for a moment of imperfect bliss.