I’ve become an old lady

washing the universe,

oblivious to ensuing chaos

after the machine has begun to spin.

I’m spinning too, in my seat,

with uneven breaths and far-flung dreams

that look like heaven

and smell like soap.

I’ve become what I’ve become

and there’s no taking back

a single sinking/rising moment

before skin changed shape

and dark things began to grow on the mind.

A little daydreaming

makes for fantastic spot remover.

There’s cheese and an apple

and the air is very strange,

like the sweet smell of sheets

that should have been changed

weeks ago but time got away

and now, only smoke can cover

the ill effects of losing a body

because you don’t need to see

to feel the air rushing by

and know the end of the path

is upon you.

They bravely faced torrential smiles

of all the people faking it for posterity.

They held jobs and washed dishes

and watched old movies for relief.

He wrote about another her

over and over, in different shades

of grief and romantic cynicism;

she wrote about him

couched in terms so he would never know

it was about him, though he thought

everything was about him in some way-

which is was, for the wrong her.

They bravely set aside cravings

for junk food as they delicately nibbled

on craft cheese and artsy beer, dreaming

of greasy ambrosia and carnal knowledge

dripping from their chins.

He stayed in his teenage room (mentally);

she kept spinning in a made-up meadow.

An embroidered lung

rests upon fluffy four-ton clouds,

heedless of peaked protuberances.

Lasso a lumberjack cradling coffee

with hair falling like comets;

ignore the missing green corduroy

and always remember

the red vest with special patterned trim.

Voyages meant something when we had

no maps or agendas.

We were never sailors but

we knew how to lick lollipops

and celebrate solstice like children amok.

Rita’s mom knitted

in her dim and quiet den

while Rita refilled coffee cups

in the diner on 12th.

Both women daydreamed

about snuggling days long past,

when the whole world

(all that mattered) was held

in an orangey greenish quilt

that smelled of menthol cigarettes.

–

Rita smiled through smoke and hash browns

and 37 cent tips, remembering

stories her mom told her

of birds carrying souls to heaven

and how lost feathers meant second chances.

Her mom didn’t stray much from her sofa

with the faded quilt

or her songs of spring breezes rolling

over green hills of some long forgotten fantasy;

she was hoping her daughter still had visions

beyond gravy and chipped formica.