I am a French horn, a bottle neckless hourglass and butterscotch tape

You're a red harp with veins painted on the side

When I come home, you see me as an acrylic heap with chips of lead and belly aching homing words

Scotch sticks and smoke smells and the stitches are uncomfortable on my neck where you often warm your hands

I am a masquerade of shellfish clamoring on about the epitome of burlesque humor

You’re alien to anything other than sourdough and design

I have structured my thesis around burlesque and you fail to see the humor

When I fear the apologists

You fear the escapists

I am the tigers of the world, borrowing viciousness

You’re a long pause, loved and disquieted, painting my stripes as veins

I’m freaked out now because the apologists are escaping and the escapists are apologizing

At this clear impasse, you pity and press on until my fingers at the French horn drain to my sides

I am an island in a puddle of sand

my great throat tree is featured in float parades now

sponsored by paper mills

they send us free notebooks and you leave me

rounds of exquisite corpse to play

or folded frogs

or news of another alleged abduction with ***** political jokes in the margins

or the times you jot down to remember when you thought of the ghost

when i find these on my table, i sneak off for a phone call to the mattress

the mattress doesn’t care to watch parades on live broadcasted television

i can hear the ghost making breakfast on the other end

the mattress stares at the ceiling mostly and i remember this and i’m so

thankful

for you

i pick up a folded sheet and draw the trunk torso

and inside the tree trunk i draw a little man playing the french horn

but before drawing hearts spilling from the brass

i drew a massive ***

i smiled, knew you’d appreciate it, and started sweeping

the tree in my throat started budding, i coughed up flowers

shaped like ******* and my doctor

called the government

now they want to sever my neck, count my rings and guess my age

i am afraid the sap will start seeping and i am afraid

that you are committed to the idea of putting your ear against the hole

the government is calling again, this time of an alien kind

they are also curious

i offered them my toes, but only soil drained from my shoes when removed

i guess you’re going to have to sweep more often

dirt, petals, and alien footprints

the mattress is possessed and my days are numbered

my numbers are possessed and

tree branches are starting to grow from inside

my neck, sprouting ****** bulbous limbs

wearing the springs of my mattress

in my sleep, the tree talks to my mattress

from my throat

they are in cohorts and I suppose

the ghost has nothing to do with it

but in the end the ghost will

have an affair with the mattress

and they will run away leaving the tree

and my numbers

I can’t speak because of the

tree

and the karmic terror

of the heavy branches tearing

through my throat

the ghost doesn’t know about the tree

the mattress will never tell her

the mattress is missing several springs

the mattress is possessed and can only speak in tongues

so the ghost only hears the whispers of leaves