Post-Synchronous

A word comes to me,
In dreams at first,
Then, making its way,
To my forethought,
Seems lovely.

I hear it elsewhere then,
All used and worn out,
On tongues in grocery stores,
In waves over the radio,
Converted from script, to speak through spit,
And become so much empty sound.

My word, my own dream,
Already used up.

I'll dream again.

If I Cut My Own Throat

If I cut my own throat,
Would the blood know its place,
And spurt in neat pools of one-eighth Welsh, German, and Dutch?
Would my jugular dutifully disgorge smaller gouts of Irish, English, and French,
And save a squirt or two for a forgotten Gambian and Arapaho?

Or would it all just flow together, slick and red,
Into a congealing lake of sticky brown,
Oblivious to the distinctions of genealogists?

I Sleep on Trains

I sleep on trains.

I'd like to stay awake to see trapped commuters, backyard swing sets, shirtless fat men on plastic lawn chairs, overgrown sidings, graffiti walls, spooked pronghorn herds rushing away in waves over a prairie sea, wild-bent cypress clinging to improbable perches: all the world.

Instead, the even click-kick-clack pulls my chin down gently and gravity tugs the novel I meant to read from my loosening hands. I dream of stars, of walking naked among nebulae, and stirring galaxies with my hands.

I wake in time for supper in the dining car: cocktails and time to watch the dusk slide in and the last orange light turn the silver cars to molten gold.