Honey, what was it—my original stinking sin?When, thick-tongued and fangless, I hungered to be seenfrom all angles, how could you take those pipe dreamsto mean Psycho, shower scene?

Was I too tender for you? You left me slow and lowly.Fall off the bone. Forked up wholly holeyto my febrile fibers. What other grub daydreamsof filling up your belly?

Come REM, come starry comas sopped in sepia,how come you keep on slipping past my sleepierdefenses, the walk-on cameo of my dreams?Cast me. I’d play it creepier.

If I were you? Sin would sun, blisters unblueto blusters, everything indrawn bloom intoblank sheets. Untouched. If you (in your dreams’ dreams)were me, you’d hate you too

and gratefully, hate to be granted a way with words,away-with-murder words, a wave dragged shorewardsdredging the unconscious, a wasting away of dreamsto silt, salt, sea-sharp shards,

who’s crying over that? So what if life’s longand lullabying as a Ramones song—that remains to be unseen, rewound in dreamswhere this time I’m strong, strong

as the black box the crash coughs up to keepone record of the wreckage stashed, coffin-deep,for the rest of our days. Deep as those charmed dreamswhere all I do is sleep.