A dream

where it might be storming

or maybe I just have to pee,

I am watched by oyster-pearls

where my father’s eyes used to be.

His words crack the glass of my reply,

an echo of ventriloquy,

where in the attic of my mind,

thoughts are covered by old bed-sheets.

Not like those marbled mannequins

masterfully adorned with drapery

dripping wet, a gossamer as translucent

as a sunset. These cloaks, converging

around guttural croaks, dance with

flickered tongues, the crackle of leaves.

Memories of broken bottles,

burgundy piled beneath our serpent feet,

beneath the distance I fail to reach

when, once again, my father speaks

and I wither beneath winter’s whimper:

steel-frosted words dislodge from his teeth.

My shame is summoned. He points

his crescent finger, the distance coffee

black and cigarette yellow, towards nowhere

nearer: where bliss blends with misery,

where burden blends with choice. Each

world is composed of mirrors, reflecting

all our many selves, all our too-few hours

before I wake in one, before your passing

in the other. Again, you smother

my gutter of words buried deep,

and we’re left to deepen the footprints

we tread daily in circular routines

to go on,

as much as we do now,

as much as we did then,

not speaking.