In quiet nights my grandma cries
We talk of death and people’s eyes
We miss our words, she sees a vein
I ask her, but she’s not in pain

Why are there worms when it rains
Gathering to the surface for air, for sun
The pinecones curling like dead bugs
Like upturned cockroaches and beetles
The scent of forgotten aquariums hanging over the dirt
The petrichor stained metal handrails
With grass soaked pools

And after it rained
The corpuses of worms sat
Gruesomely pressed into pavement fossils
Beneath a brown soled sneaker

There was a sort of whizzer boy,
The tinker blinker clinker boy,
With gears and knobs and springs abound,
A head full of thoughts and gears that go round.

He liked to paint and make and build,
For every craft, yes, he was skilled.
“Working hard but with time to play?
Why, that’s my favorite kind of today!”

But what made him different, you see...
He was always quite metallic-y,
And when it was his time for bed,
He charged his battery, and turned off his head.

The sheep in wolf's clothing,
The fraud the fake-
Does that bundle of grey fur,
Hide the mistakes you make?

Sing of sleep little sheep,
Or are you still awake?
Do those howls and growls
leave you too frightened to shake?

You've got them convinced,
So let's hope for your sake,
That they'll never realize,
And that you'll catch a break