She was often angry, especially at Christmas.
No wonder I imagine trees screaming;
write stories of them, after shock of axe,
slowly awakening. They die slowly too,
gaily ornamented, roots gone, stumps
soaking in buckets.
But this is later: the writer funning,
transcribing dream into image: music
from a sack of phones, a drugged
Barbi, shadows stunted by high noon.
I can laugh now, giggle over the ways
my mind works. For the child
it’s different. Untangling wired lightbulbs
can be a game or puzzle, fun anyhow,
the prize a tame rainbow born
out of an outlet, draped on Pine Tree.
For me, it was prelude
to seizure, a mom exaggerated
like weather, sending something heavy
out the window: later a visit from cops
and a man with his head bandaged filing a complaint.
Omen? Who knows? I tell the therapist
about the music. The carols still sound
beautiful, I claim. Then, our foreshortened hour
almost over, I describe a dream: Merlin
casting shadows no one can see. I
play wordgames with the wizard, mention phrases
that matter to me: ‘the dark tattle’, ‘the fist,
in her cement cradle’. Merlin frowns,
shows me real magic: wakes me up.
© 2008 Jody Azzouni