XXV –

April I’m staring into the sawed-off shotgun barrel 7:30 am Tuesday no answers celibate hole in the sky,

lips dry face dry heart strung out on the line starched stiff as a board – only thinking of you, the womb, – of wonder the traps the hooks the web where you found me

cutting up prose

in uneven rows cascading rows – the rose – that morphs into multiple mazes the anagogic liminal metaphysical storm drain lay down laughing soused too sad to see that the wind is the rain’s accomplice,

April, save me, tell me you hear me you see me in your dreams too – it has to mean something – you look upon me and I know you,

soft red – pale hair – green eyes, innocence of Candide smiling auguries of strange but possible worlds,

always more fantasy than fiction – all stories begin “who am I?”,

The problem: these thoughts go nowhere – Tuesday ends and I haven’t left bed – shaking to thoughts of – April –

Every room a womb – a tomb a shrine to the merciless divine mother – April –

Worlds tumble into order as prayers rise and make it so,

so comes love marriage honour redemption mansion on the hill or bumming down deserted highways of Lethe to Elysium Omaha,

– still in the Bastille – bed in Toronto – cold for the sake of cold warmed by dreams of April …