Is
Vacation.

not a ripple
a stir
all lays washed
and towelled
a world about to shake
droplets
out her hair

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

It is a declaration of cowardice.
I put my pen down and
Step away slowly
[Defusing the letter bomb].
They don't always turn the
Other sheet, you know.

Sometimes the poem
Writes back.

time and god trade barbs clothed in genericide.  metaphor’s child is a condensed version of what the kids these days call *******.  younger, my pain was outdated but had its own phone.  I meet my parents.  I begin to act like my son.  I leave myself to marry what is mourned to how it grieves.  older, I go alone at night to where I am worried.  like existence, I overstate my daughter’s angelic disability.  my wife hears what is heard by one who flits from mirror to mirror.  I lose a black wallet.  I pray.  sky for the dollhouse, amen.

she asks me if i'm there.
i respond with silence.
we're fighting. we're always fighting. about things like why you ignored my phone call or why you still talk to your ex or why you came home late
or why you looked at a different girl when i was standing right in front of you. or why you dont look at me anymore when you say you love me. or why, when i tell you my heart is breaking, you dont kiss me. you dont respond with a love song.

she asks me if im there
i respond, no.
she tells me she loves me.
she looks away.

they’d say his head was hard because it was too small for god to kiss.  when he’d come into town, he’d leave with children we’d not seen except on  posters.  his welcome mat was a napkin spotted with blood from a Q-tip.  save for the tiny matter of Jesus, our parents gave him little to do.