A quiet light
slips across the stage
pencil drawings
flipped formed into
anorexic glass
stick figure thin
stacked mimes
only the barking
dogs and whales
could hear it explode
into sonar boom.

My life,
has become a debut
of silent animation
I'm the first of Emile Cohl's
funny faces,
my heart,
a voice whispered
death threat
a French caricaturist
largely forgotten
incoherent
love contortionist
pulsations
of the retina
rapid eye movement
fantasmagorie,
complex shifting sand dollars
and rabid flower images,
they never forget a pretty face.
Sword-fighting fish mouths
gaped like cannons
dancing petals wind borne
missing
milk carton illusions
memories drum
tight like elephants
stuffed into houses
avant-garde
artistic movement
curdling my eyes by hydropathy
baths of incoherent apathy
falling between my brows
like Chinese water torture.

Pictures that are missing you,
that were always missing me
and me, missing the music
of laughter, that love
that turned numb
the earth thumbed green.