Palinode 15

This is reality reality is

                quotidian

We grow horizontal.
I am sick of it.

I read on the news of natural disasters.
I do not believe they CAN happen.

I had a dream my uncle died in a fishing accident. I think it was the salmon that ate him, I can’t be sure. Someone brought his body to us, and we continued our work day, my family, as we should, working as if it wasn’t there—stiff with rigor mortis, his mouth, almost smiling, baring his teeth, sitting with us during a family staff meeting.

What is safer—

Laundry spinning with soap
I see white when I look through the glass front of the washer

I have tried not to leave angry
I am angry that people are not

unveiled to
one
another

And all the lines of the subway map in Japan—colorful and confusing,
I think they are unrecognizable signs, language,
rails on tracks I can follow,
but can’t tell you,
     where they are going—
Likewise, I cannot tell if that is my blue tee shirt or if that is a pillowcase.

What are we supposed to talk about?
We don’t have anything in common.

I would like to read the characters of this language.
I would like to know if they are symbols,
if I should look for patterns,
or if they are a jumble of strokes—the smallest units, like phonemes, indicators that you are traveling
on the red line, though it
is curvy and swings east before ending west, you can feel sure
that it will not derail, it will not
take you too far out of the way to end up where-ever it is you want to be.