Carousel Somnambulist

Dark from beneath eyelids black milk pause seeps as the first
Hint of alarm, smoking, and turns this carousel midnight.

Or flying, running godhelpusall for the nearest feathers but the bullet
Comes, flashes blind, arms tied tight with ticketing tape plastic sunshine.

Cotton candy leers most dimly in open eyes, irises empty carousels
Their bulbs all fizzled, power plug sparking in a pool of popcorn grease.

Sneaker rubber skidding into white powder, fingernail chalk
Through the wind tunnel umbilical cords ears wrap tight, fetal.

Shoe planes air-wearied, hours of graphite becomes its own cellophane horror,
There are screams, blankets the most shackled prisons presently constructible.

Knees folded into amnesia nocturnes, and hair creaks stubborn,
Tangled carousel bars splayed out damp on pillow carnivals.

Myelin sheathing REM cycles like cheap taffeta after the
Dancer has tripped from her house and gone home, broken.

Not enough chainlink gripped with enough fervor to sit still
Skulls so full of ticket stubs, the world’s best forest firefighters.

A body flat in the streets like oil, black water rivuletting on either side
Streetlamps lining its breathy sleep like goosebumps after a drizzle.

The indigo taste of bowls of sleep spilt candy corn
In the dirt under feet ever-correct, forever deciding.

Death between every stall’s hocking when the doors close
When the story ends in a gasp and sheets wet their pants.

Blush grits between toes that have forgotten slippers to crunch,
Mallets, into jars of pennies hungering for a public square.