maybe people are sitting around human beings that someone lit up like candles. Maybe it’s time to clap and blow the humans out.
When you cut off a slice of life with a bread knife, shadows are like dogs
under the feet of people going home like plates, dogs waiting for the Discount Mart sign lights, dogs under the table hanging their red tongues to lick their share of plates, and
to show time wearing people out, dogs that bite the world and won’t let go.
I try to call, put my hands out, stroke your back, and ask ‘What’s your name?’
but like darkness baring its red gums,
with white fangs, saliva dripping
without fail
when the sign of Discount Mart lights up, I can’t tell the difference between my family and frozen meat, I can’t tell the difference between bread bags and sleepwalking, nickel plated pots stacked tightly and the sound of claxons.
Humans swaying in the firelight turn off after one block.
Become white smoke.
Like a random barcode, I briefly scan my soul in the darkness and it disappears, the sound
is like the mackerel can opened by an apocalypse survivor, the sound, CRAAAAAAAASSHHH like a collapsing display case.
Dog barks sealed in Discount Mart gift boxes, woof woof, moving to the round plate of the mind,
I mumble in order not to forget, fangs stuck in my name.
