Confrontation

Late calls—

I am worried down to thin bones and sharp prickles, like a poison cactus.

I am worried down to shadows of garbage cans

Scraping across self-conscious pavement

Screeching with baby eyes and pouty lips.

Don’t confront me, saying I have forgotten time

I have not forgotten

How to trip over chunks of bleeding gravel.

Time I found somewhere else

Time I took off walking

Gave up on all this talking,

Somewhere where a faded yellow gas station is home

Like a submarine in the peace-dove desert.

Spanish peanuts grow on trees,

Dripping butter falls on popcorn bushes

Caramel chocolate cherries are wrapped in purple bows,

Violin strings

Yellowbird wings

Coneflowers in my hair

Bonga drums and silver harpsichords in the air

Lime-green trees and magenta trains—

Time I found paradise,

No reasons, no time, no seasons,

No sense of shame, depression, or regret,

No sense of direction,

Amnesia—

Nothing and nothing and nothing

Left on earth to forget.