A Tongue in the Mouth of the Dying

Morning Praise of Nightmares, two

MORNING PRAISE OF NIGHTMARES, TWO When a steak knife fiddled against the sinew of my gut, I heard the slow whine, felt each ridge, felt the simmering red erupt like the juice of an overripe plum—the tickle of nectar running down the body, still warm from the sun. And from the kitchen to the street fair—as it often is in dreams—children laughing, a clown, the color yellow, balloons melting against the burned sugar of the skin. And guns—tiny, like from gumball machines— in tiny hands. Bullets, red and green and gunmetal blue, piercing the skin like botflies, their metal heads in deep until the offspring, that winged blood, gently and timidly took flight. Then the peeling of my skin: who was that crafter whose face I never saw? That paper-maker, his teacup hands, his clothespin fingers rinsing clean the lace of my forearms, the squared-off torso, long sheet of leg, thick bit of finger and toe like strips of bacon, strung up, decorating that red room like black and white photos developing mountains or smiles or sex. I could taste my own blood, though I couldn’t lift my hands to finish the job—put myself out of misery. I was but remains—a piled heap of slop on the floor of a house I never shared a meal in. Even my eyelids were gone and my spine exposed. I was an afterbirth without 28 the birthing, a too-early puppy whose whole pink body thumped with each beat of his slow heart. This is my morning praise of nightmares: Open your eyes, I hear three mouths whisper against the flower of my skull, mama, open your eyes. 29 ...