Inspired by: “These Drugs”, D12, Devil’s Night (2001)
Balloons bump against each other
where thoughts should be, dozy
as a cat napping on a rug.
I trace words over and over in tomes
to make a palimpsest. My tangerine
calm hammers the xylophone
into silence. The clang frightens my fins
and the hyena doesn’t get the joke.
I don’t sneeze anymore.
I never knew sleep could be so deep
like the old saw, and dreams
could be rank but chaste. Huzzah.
No threat of addiction. Just a clean
clock, free of crucial drivel.
—
Cathryn Shea’s poetry is forthcoming or has recently appeared in After the Pause, Gargoyle, Gravel, Main Street Rag, Permafrost, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Snap Bean, is by CC. Marimbo (2014, Berkeley). She is a past editor and adviser for Marin Poetry Center Anthology and is the author of dozens of software and database manuals (a sort of creative non-fiction). Cathryn lives in Fairfax, CA and spends part of each day watching over a covey of California quail. See www.cathrynshea.com. @cathy_shea on Twitter.