JESSE GLASS
By day you lose your
stories.
They come back to
you in dreams.
You step around the
dark
Cloth of them, scissors
in your hand,
You will cut something
useful for your children,
Something for the
wife to wear
From this rough,
ill-smelling cloth
Of dreams. Coarse,
heavy, thick,
It would smother
you if you failed
To brush its flexing
tide from your face
Before you sleep.
Its raveled edges
Ripple with an electric
Life of its own,
as if it pulsed
Within some tropical
lagoon in search
Of a fish to paralyze,
then devour.
Man, what will you
make of it?
A mask ungraced by
human feature?
A star-shaped cloth
to wipe the dawn away?
The scissors flash--
a cry bubbles up--
It is your own voice.
Old blood
Spreads on the floor;
day and night
Reel past the window.
Your arms grow
Weak from holding
its weft to the light; your hands
Lose themselves in
the itchy folds.
You hear your wife
and children
Call your name from
the cold
Rooms as you cut
black wings for them,
And pray this gift,
shot through
With steel threads,
this midnight weight of wings
Will not collapse
upon them
When they fly.