It is impossible to tell where one creature
begins and another one ends; a mouth
made of mouths is swallowing a seven-
headed dragon, and a monster made of
monsters prods the dragon with a red poker.

The voice on the answering machine is
a ghost; I cannot erase it, and I
cannot listen to it. It’s there, it’s there,

like the darkness that is coming, like
the monster who lives somewhere in my heart
and will never completely go away.

The days scatter like frightened birds, the small
feathers floating on the tips of the new
grass as the sun stands panting overhead,

and the hours, the hours go by so slowly
that the minutes within them are mountains
and each second a tree of many rings.