Beds moaning in a give and take
some sort of car crash outside, morning’s roadkill
people choking on their breath during sleep.
I exhale words I do not mean to say then swallow them up again
          just battered croaking –

all these sounds spattered like a Victorian print.
I feel the air of another person whistling on my backside:
he will climb vines to get in my bed and eat me.

I hear night-noises, and that is what I think,
there are cannibals at the sill
big green tree-looking men who fit me whole in their stomach.
                My bedroom, like a cupboard
                         and me the same, we open without a key.

Across the street
there has to be a factory of some sort

where women are put into jars for jam and their skin’s the toast –
they get pregnant by ear. One hundred decibels
given by my father’s snoring moustache
and fifty for an ****** that causes leopard print sheets.

               Then, I am in a dream in which
   someone large holds me
closer than a criminal, but we just ballroom dance.

Then, I open those eyes again
                 and dogs bark in southern accents
                 and my house sweats from a nightmare
                 and the hour hands me sandbags
                 and wives finally get to pawn the rifle for thousands
                               but not before I hear a shot.