by Marsha de la OSo much as close my eyes and a flayed Labrador is laid at my doorstep. And here's the same bone lodged in the slippery pottage of my heart where this man croons, Baby you're so sweet until I take his head between my hands and lay it on my breast. There's the moon in the high window, her wall-eye glancing off me, and a few bobbing stars, every tawdry shining thing. I've identified Venus more times than I can count as an agent for insomnia, a broad sail that catches the wind and slides away. Not even halfway through the hours, his fitful sleep, wheeze of a saber-saw, waves receding on a rocky shore, breath whip-snaking down a chute, until his body forgets—how still, how close the kingdom, one stalled-gulp away, and I jostle his dying shoulder—he recoils, yes, rebels, back now, mouth full of silver, What? he moans to darkness, what?
