Simulated Dream III (This, Too, Will Ossify)

They weren’t always there, you know. There used to be nothing. Even after all this time they still seem out of place, amidst the cradles of sticks and sun-bleached bones. But they’ve made a perch and a home out of their mouths and there they sit, one at mourning and the other trying to be everything and simultaneously being nothing. At first their home was shiny and new but then it rusted and grew into twisted sinews where the birds play rock paper scissors, but this isn’t a game of a chance, it’s a game of consequence. No matter how many clouds or moons gather around its head, the dove is still echoed in a selfish whisper (“I won’t share your eyes”). Well I guess that proves it—the gods on that branch are mortal after all.

Alright boys, let’s shoot this day for night. We’ve an important job to do, that puppet won’t light up by itself. Nimble fingers can pull at the strings, but the body they’re attached to kicks in too much dust. My boy, my boy, what can I say? I tried my best to make you young, but all my artistic skills failed—you came out as a man. In fact, you were me. I don’t know if they were fingers or fists that followed, but the faces in the smoke I knew all too well. It’s not my fault I painted all the closet doors the wrong color, please don’t make me do them again. Oh no, not fair! That’s not a traumatic scene from my childhood, that’s just a cuff link! It still presses down on me a bit too hard for my taste, though.

I hope nothing sharp cuts the power lines, they have a long journey ahead of them up that pale expanse of mahagony. I know the male anatomy isn’t quite accurate on a crucifix, but that’s how I learned it anyway. I wrapped it in fields of golden cloth but it all fell off when you pulled it and—Please stop! Not yet! Keep him swaddled a bit longer! It’s bad enough you took away all of his defining features and characteristics. Tug at it all you want, you’ll still let trees spill in over his arms. And not just any trees—the kind that can seem part of an endless forest if you frame them the right way, the kind that look better without leaves and that make promises they can’t keep. Please don’t shed your memory by night. I put this jar of fireflies here for you to remember everything by. You can see things better with your hands over your eyes (birds' wings refract light, didn’t you know?)

Waves lick at everything on a map, even if it’s not Spain of France or an Iberian peninsula.

Even the ice falling and clumping into shapes on the car window after a snow fall.

My favorite show, outdone and threatened by sharp tail feathers, as always. How’d you just do that? All these imperfect shapes lying around and you pull that out of the ocean? I can’t compete with something on an invisible perch, I just can’t. I know why you do it, though. It’s all mapped out. And it’s not an island, believe me, I checked. My scream is just part of the landscape (and there is no more white space on the map).

Why’s he smiling so much? He’s so old, with his feet of clay that kicked up so much dust (I’m sorry I kicked up so much dust). He won’t smile once they all have fallen out.

You know what, on second thought, I won’t share your eyes. There’s only one thing left to do in these mountains now.