Not having the book not remembering what it said

stunned awake into sheets’ tissuewrapped old dress dank from years’ saving

dusty gritty cement floor little windowless room who knew

what children could get up to

crack of sunlight outside stairs leading down to it

push open the door whatever took place still lingering

don’t you feel this way about certain spaces

you would not know what to say to who you once were

a life that could have resembled anyone’s

where your body led you too young to have imagined anything

rearing like a car alarm a sweeping fire

over dry grass where you live now

Small motors for taming grass moan, the day not so hot, in the Times the columns of the dead are short ones

dried fronds droop at the tops of palms, brown petticoats to fall on walkers as Santa Anas send husks flying

the dream with a bride upended, long white veil trailing

a dance performance where Apollo and muses create expertly crafted geometry with their bodies

meeting the friend not seen for a long time, her tanned and lipsticked face, amiably she removes a sleek wig from her bald skull

it makes me so hot, little sounds with the mouth like water stumbling

past café windows green and black snakelike leaves, brushstrokes from a phallic era of painting, crow feathers’ seismic rustling

gray ficus trunks easy to carve into, names overlay names, roots coiled inconveniently above ground slashed to fit corridors between sidewalk and curb

here in my body it feels crowded, bottles slithering in a recycle truck, cataracts of glass