The Visit  

With my saliva I polish the moon that swims

on the surface of my sleep. The princess-hunting

season is never-ending, it warns me, as

the darkness enfolds me in its paws. No worries,

even as a girl takes off her socks, taking

the evening skin for a walk through the maze

of consciousness, where knives stroll that would

like to leave their trace, she knows that the muses like

flies fall on sugar, on the glare, on the red carpet, and so

as a goodnight treat I feed them with a better

future. I open the champagne of my heart, I serve

myself bubbling blood and—so that it forgives me—

I also toast the earth, but it does not budge.

It is fed up with the outpouring of the red liquid

that fills its pores: it cannot sneeze, lest it take

my bones off the hook. Awake, I wander off

to the night kitchen for a glass of water; you are

sitting there, and ask me for a light. Dead people

don’t smoke, I say, real princesses sleep during the

night, they do not invite those who have just died

to visit them, you smile and grow pale in the moonlight.