by Emily Kell, 2012
I woke into my sleeping and dreamt that spores of myself were spreading somewhere in another dreamscape where
it was not fall in Savannah:
an empty space between the seasons
where siren screams did not ricochet against the sidewalks and the rooftops putting invisible creases in the map of the city where sobs gathered to run like rain drops to the gutter
and the sound never disperses but is fossilized
and hangs somewhere in the humidity
an ossified and collective emotional scar
even the sunflowers could feel it and they hung their pretty heads
like overripe southern bells
I felt the weight of my ephemeral skin sagging against the rusty wheels of the world
and prayed to the Great Blank Space above
that we were not the formless persistence of words
that drains the grains from our hour glass
not the afflicted knobs that filled our craniums with godlessness
not the flesh that filled our shoes
not our lips of ash
our pits of smoke, and skins of sin
the Great Blank Space rolled open for a moment just to tell me no
you are not asleep
you are not eternal
wake to the green dawn of great death
as the moon projects you like a needle on the record of yourself
relinquish
wake up
Now.