The World is Afraid to Sleep

Kris Brandhagen

Tears fall out like the seeds from a pumpkin

unhurried, leaving trails of orange sinew.

Weariness tells apart heart

beats like so many hands clapping.

Warm yes, this is true

A meek warmth. Orange doesn't burn.

An earthworm of glowing embers rests on Jacqui's

tongue and coils through her down to her toes.

Jacqui says there is something in her chest that stretches her taut

[this is the word she uses] taut,

like a balloon of red raw fingers.

I wasn't wearing a bow tie at the interview, in my opinion

you can hardly expect seriousness from someone in a bow tie.

Jacqui goes around opening windows.

Because of the heat her eyes won't focus.

In a dream where she had opened a door on a vast and windy brown landscape, she used a sleeping voice to cry out. Urgent, the sounds coming out of her mouth; they woke her. Her own voice. Like static. A loud scream, an ugly dry voice that she couldn't believe was her own.

My love:

Solitude expounds

[edit: amplifies]

loneliness.

Perhaps Jacqui will wake this time in a lovely way,

like waking to a snowflake that lands on her fingertip.

I am walking, stepping over pieces of myself, beside Jacqui, across, and finally away. I look at the sparkles in the snow, at the trees that line the sidewalk, at the swirls of her footprints, prints that swirl because of her indecision--how she turns and turns. I whisper to the air, I never dared to go to Jacqui, metaphorically speaking [her hair was too big], I walk beside her, and when I look back to see how my footprints appear next to hers, I see that they are backwards. I smell flowers in the air, no type I can identify, and I know that if I turn quickly I will see at least one rabbit in the snow.

Bio: Kris Brandhagen lives and works in Montréal, Québec. Her work has appeared in such publications as PoetryReviews.ca, Cahoots Magazine, Carousel Magazine, TransVerse Journal, In Medias Res and Spring Magazine.