The Small Hours

The Small Hours Ceilings can be mesmerizing From crop circles to popcorn Ants on parade, elephants Brought to life, a picture show, Night light seeping across corners, Cast over plaster and wood, Cool white light, computer or moon, Seeping in from all sides To light the hazy stage Electric green ribbons zap Flickering, above the bed, a laser show Where elephants morph into mothers My mother, skimming leaves from our pool Blurry and full of the sap of sleepiness Sweaty sheets and trips to the beach Fevers, birthday parties, funerals 4am burns in a volcano red On the bed stand Lying on my back And I left my body, reverted Or regressed, to a younger one That was lying on his back On that cool crispy blue sleep sack Next to the waterbed, frozen By thoughts of atom bombs As big as hot air balloons Dropping out out of the sky Popping cities and cities of children Like a bubble Snap! There Snap! Not there And I consider my age And I consider myself ageless Two bursts of light on each end Of a line, wire thin 5 am, 1995, fifteen, twenty, eighty One, three, five, seven, nine 6 am, there’s still time Where have all the flowers gone? And other questions, heaps, Mountains of them, Where does God go after eternity? Comfort is a hot commodity The ceiling blasts off like a rocket A dog yelps down the street I feel my arms and fingers again The world rotates on a tilt And all the people rush to find their footing while I try Try to cram galaxies into the keyboard Next to the razor hot red numbers Counting rabbits backwards over the fence That wavers and quivers like a Great Wall With no end and no beginning In circles and circles across the sky