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