I woke one morning in my bed.
The sheets were green instead of red.
They were red the night before,
So next I run to my front door.
The door is closed, the lock is thrown,
But it is not a door I own—
The color’s off, the knob is grey,
And wasn’t it brass just yesterday?
Footfalls behind me and I turn to look,
What I see next leaves me utterly shook,
My husband alive after three weeks buried,
His face confused as to why I’m so harried.
I run into his arms, confused but not caring,
Want to ask how, but I’m not so daring,
Instead I just cry and laugh for awhile,
And when I pull back, I drink in his smile.
The next day is wonder, the next week--bliss,
I find there are dozens of things I don’t miss,
The different models of cars and who has bright fame,
All the things I see now were just facts and names.
The things that mattered, they were still there.
Altered slightly, but not enough that I’d care.
Johnny was left-handed here and spoke with a slur
Left over from an accident some years before,
My parents seemed distant, emotionally bereft,
But it was due to my other’s history of theft.
I was an explorer in this new version of my life,
Digging up my past as a daughter and wife,
Figuring out the differences both big and small,
Because I planned to stay here after all.
Except today we went to a park.
This was apparently a tradition,
It was a gathering of sorts, and by my own admission,
I began to get nervous as soon as we arrived,
Passing by groups of people laughing in the grass as they writhed and writhed.
The park was filled with a manic mob,
And as we plunged in, the crowd began to throb
With an frantic ecstasy that seemed insane,
Sending aching tendrils into my brain.
Ahead I saw a giant shape—an X made out of steel and fire.
A man hung chained on its burning frame,
the crowd pulling him this way and that across the pyre.
The man was screaming, he was laughing,
The crowd was singing, dancing, chanting,
I smelled him burning to their song,
I retched a little at so much wrong.
My Johnny looked at me with eyes gleaming,
I think he wept, for tears were
Coming down his face and I almost thought
He knew how bad this all was, even
Though he wasn’t really my Johnny,
Oh God, surely he knew this wasn’t right,
This world wasn’t right…
I looked back and saw a pair at the park’s edge,
They weren’t laughing or coming near,
Perhaps like me, they weren’t from here.
Oh take me with you, take me back,
I can’t stay here you see because it’s changing me already and
Oh no, why is this place like this?
How could it be like this?
What is this song they’re singing?
And why do I know the words?
I start to sing and the pain goes away.
I start to dance and the fear goes away.
I eat from the dead man’s cooked heart,
And I go away.
And then I go home with my Johnny.
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