Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Broken Sleep


Sleep has shape, you know?
One night dreams were drawers for me.
I shut each one on its raucous contents
only to find the next one open
and myself inside.
And there was the night of code,
whose methods and whose attributes
were useless, through every iteration,
for debugging my subconscious.
On such nights,
waking is a temporary mercy:
another dream will swallow me like a suitcase,
and I'll never get back the time I spend
packing and unpacking what's in dreams.

March 22 2016

Sunday, March 6, 2016

A Daughter's Memory


My father spoke in tongues.
He was an articulate man
but glossolalia marked him.
There was nothing of religion in it;
his speech was catholic
(I looked it up)
and born of humor,
and maybe something more.
Why did he exercise so much
his talent for fictional language?
I thought perhaps he was reaching for
an expression of something he didn't understand,
but honestly I felt that whatever it was,
it was pulling him away. I'm sorry now
I never asked him why he spoke in tongues--
and on this, of all things, he was mute.

March 6 2016