Fun House

I saw the faces of dolls. Pink cold dolls, blind frightened dolls. Dolls with round uniform shoulders. Curtains hung everywhere like skin, I spread them like lips. Through the window, it was us in a cave. My children were chewing on cereal. With hearts of dough, their minds were softer than clay. I reached into the damp hole, touched the unabridged volumes, the pages packed with lies. I reached wanting to save them. But my fingers were frost bitten with rage. The throat of my brain swallowed me. Each step I sank, shadows were ink in my clothes. Each word a vinyl toy resisting the rain. Until to reject the lies, I garnish shoddy freedoms like a thrill seeker. Until I became a liar, and my sleep was watching my murder. The ideas cluttered and tarnished me, indelible the notions by the dumpster load. Eyes in the darkness seemed predatory. But only alone, I listened to the sound of my wounds infecting me. As a Marine with a steel mind for a trap clamped shut, I protect my ashes from the ignorant! They thunder past in radiant trucks, on glorious tractors. Their habitual smiles ablaze. They turned the pipes and melted the iron. I did not look. it was my head that was tilted like a mannequin. It was only me who wondered if I could hear myself mutter. And me who prayed I might still be breathing. Published in Cafeteria - December 1977