About the Dead: Poems

Inside the Skull

[9] i n S i D e T h e S K U L L ~after a painting by Francisco de Zurbarán Once inside the skull, i felt free to choose the décor without recourse or disapproval, so i hung a portrait of myself on the western cranial wall, potted two African violets and placed them on an end table (two inspires competition for light and affection). i rolled out my grandmother’s Slovakian rug, and upon it, two folding chairs facing the ocular windows. Soon enough, morning came stampeding into the room like someone had opened a blast-furnace door. venetian blinds crossed my mind. i just thought of the words, and there they were, a flood of orange gathering at my feet. From then on, willing things into existence occupied my time: first, i was bitter, gorgeous, chiseled from marble, and then on the eastern wall a mirror appeared; second, she appeared: i named her Darla. i conjured a decanter, Cornish hens, a kitchen table. That night, i invented a bed where we made love. The next morning the folding chairs were replaced with a couch i must’ve dreamed up, with Darla on it, resting. She said, It was like it just occurred to me, rubbing a hand over her rounded and very pregnant stomach. Out the window, i noticed a mendicant dressed in rags, edging closer to us along an old goat-herder’s path [10] under a variegated row of stone pine. he lifted us up, cradled us in his palms like we were a strange and fragile object—peered with the intensity of a man walking through a darkened field. But soon, his eyes dropped to the ground like a broken mule, like someone who understands he’s been cheated. it’s as if he had seen something that wasn’t there. it’s as if he had seen us cowering inside. ...