In a moment the
street lamps will flick on at once
and clouds will dim to
swimming pools.
In here I slip
under a thin lip
of sleep.
Mica swirls disperse
over the bodies of them who
glide
on their backs
in my brain’s
gray pools, sipping paper umbrella drinks.
They caress my hair
and sing me
sailor’s lullabies.
When I move in your
lamby arms,
you murmur
soap-words
meetooooomeeeeetoooooometootoootoo
your mouth loose
with trust
and slobber.
Under the darkened
mountain clouds
I, Mer-Queen, ascend
with my scepter
from a tower of shriveled
siren tails, ghosts of
other women
you have slept with.
I demand to know
if I’m the best! I feel
their sweat erupt
from your dreams’ hot hollows.
I sail my ship over the city’s
corridors of crumbling brick
they call me to dinner
they wash out my wounds with gauze
they shove me backward off tall jetties
they slice me up with splintered mirrors
they take my bones and build hotels
other women you have slept with
go to Stop n Shop,
buy bags of rice,
take showers.
in darkest marshes of sleep
neurons tread water
talk to each other
in blackness.
Retinas flicker under their lids
like eels!
Where do we go
after we sleep?
I only know
the sky at the top of the sea
-- sheet light of morning
calls ghosts to scatter.
In Atlantis, even the deadness
breathes.
I wake sticky-lidded
humming some shanty you sang
in the blue enclave
I am already forgetting.
Kathleen Radigan is a human, writer, and Rhode Island native. Currently an English major at Wesleyan University, her poetry can be seen in The Harpoon Review, PANK, Prick of the Spindle, and Constructions. She loves comedy, dogs and lox.
