Write your nightmares on the children’s’ menu
in the latest crayon colors, Basement Dark and Surgery Gone Wrong,
Naked Pop Quiz and Elevator Fire.
The doorknob spins and spins in your sweaty hand
and your feet never return your frantic calls
as Dad comes closer on his many legs.

Write your fantasies on the speeding ticket. Mount your hog
in a pith helmet, bomber jacket and rubber skirt,
and guide your ride right into the nurse’s station.
Lift off from a launching pad of salamander pincushions
and glide past the paisley minarets
on your flying espadrilles.

Write your epitaph on tomorrow’s weather,
on a boulder stranded by an ancient glacier,
on the dusty windows of a disused classroom,
on the Nature of Things.
Inscribe it on your own ticklish palms.

 

---

 

Roy White is a blind person who lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota with a lovely human and an affable lab mix. His work has appeared, or is about to, in Poetry, BOAAT Journal, Baltimore Review, Tinderbox, and elsewhere, and he blogs at lippenheimer.wordpress.com.