Photo by Julian Myles on Unsplash
-after Everclear
I have forgotten the sleepwalk
dance. I know to limp my arms
at my sides, shut my eyes, sidestep
the staircase, the cat, the toothy legos,
but I don’t remember the steps
that go with the key change,
the ones you do when someone
wakes you in the pantry.
I don’t want to be the bad guy, but
I live most days now
with the ghosts of the Pacific.
Point Reyes opens and closes
my doors, eddies and crests
on the second floor.
Puget Sound rearranges
the photos in the picture frames,
floats teacups to the ceiling,
puts them back down without
breaking. Tongass Narrows
burbles and murmurs in the corners
all night, giving me water dreams,
hungry and hollow.
I just want to find some place to be alone, and
the world is ending, so now
is the time. The Narrows has no
breakers, but I can ferry
to the middle of the channel,
lay flat on the deck,
watch the world play itself out
between the borders of the mountains.
I’m taking bets on what color the sky
will be when the world dies.
Orange gets good odds,
and no one’s laying points
on the cool colors.
Come be alone with me. I’ll teach you
the sleepwalk dance, the dance
of the ocean ghosts, the little I remember.
Frances Klein is a high school English teacher. She was born and raised in Southeast Alaska, and taught in Bolivia and California before settling in Indianapolis with her husband and son. She has been published in So it Goes: The Literary Journal of the Vonnegut Memorial Library and Tupelo Press, among others.