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The Hope Chest
When I close my eyes there’s a white key. But maybe it’s a box, so I can’t press it. The sides are shell blue, but I can’t check without turning the box. The musician told me his sister and he would say Morgem and expose the teeth and flare the nostrils to express a particular affection. The white box won’t say Morgem. Or Corbemsalad. It must be a heartbreaking desk. It says to be in on a secret just means to know you’re in a secret — the pleasure’s like two people beheld by a third in the act of making meaning. It says on one hospital floor the humans die. Another they give birth. A third they grow new chins. At a fourth they’re lopped. When the floors mix by mistake, it’s usually in the middle where the desk rasps under husks of ink, and the nostrils grow for air. We talk, never sing, because music gives the god room to stretch and the god kills by growing in the head.