your curry is on someone else’s plate name    inscribed in
    someone else’s story
when you awake    they will have long grown accustomed to
    the dark    humming some syrupy pop song
someone scrubbing their hands in the bathroom next door
    squeezes their soap into a fish
the persimmon he bit from    is more golden than lion
when the weather gets this cold    they agree to meet in     suntwist fields
she says Happy New Year
but he is bored    and has to have a smoke
a ghost nods off beneath the blackboard tree    in punishment
    the kittens are forced to crouch in tummies
we are mortified    at vomiting a layer of sea

the skin of which could not be whiter
things are not like it imagined they would be    nor are they
    like the other way it imagined them
she wants the wind so he dispenses wind
he wants the fire    so fire she dispenses
the girls hook their pinkies in the crooked lane    hatch their
    secret plots
on the day after tomorrow    it will rendezvous with its familiar
    in the red mailbox as agreed
best to bind them up    for recycling
if you are tired my dear    please play me with a tremolo     harmonica
suddenly it longs to bear a book-bag on its back    stroll naked
    down the avenue
later he escorts her across the bridge    and midway experiences
    a temple
crisp as a cucumber    their brows
mock moonlight    hangs suspended in the air
he rubs her eyes    rubs out a storied welt    and all the sweat
    is left there