Chimera

I’m sleeping with my hand
between the cream
pages of Louise Glück’s
Descending Figure, Mom’s ghost
banging on the other side
,of the door, telling me to get up
umbilical cord knotted
at either end to an empty soup can, her
rasp resonating across the murky
void of whatever is & isn’t
dream, where I’m falling

through the inverted bowl of sky
dumping its soggy flakes
on a red rooftop two blocks
from the tracks. Whenever
a train passes, it shakes
the faded cowboy sheets wound
around me, a comic
mummy, shamefully hugging
,a stuffed dog. G.I. Joe, Creepy Crawlers
spare bike parts & the like litter
the floor. A model sits on my chest

of drawers–a funny car dragster, Ed

,Big Daddy" Roth’s Rat Fink"

the rotund rodent’s candy apple

tongue extended, metallic blue claw
clutching the oversized stick’s
eight ball. I don’t understand
,exactly how I wound up here
but I’m quick to give up
,donkey’s years of memories
so nobody screamed
naked on the lawn, nobody
'scared the tits off the neighbors

yak topiary & nobody died. Mom carries
on like I’m late for the big test. Once
out of bed, I can’t go back. I want
nothing more than plastic soldiers
with missing extremities to stand up
plead for sleep. But my mouth won’t &
.work & the dead don’t listen

Matt Morris--

"Chimera" first appeared in Hunger Mountain & subsequently in Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand.