Swoon

I’m seeing the boulder rolled away. I’m filling with ichor

& holy Sliquid, lubed up like a spaceship, what planet are you from?

Come lick my wounds. My winding sheet’s in shreds

in the dirt. Little scraps fluttering up like white-petaled birds

& other nonsense. Fool for you: no; idiot: no; jaguar

blitzed on hallucinogenic caapi roots

or capuchin on a millipede maybe & yes I painted my cave

to make it ready for the next thousand centuries of you.

Lunacy! Piracy! Breathe on me & I’m done for!

Noli me tangere, my prehistoric horses will dissolve.

What about that turtle we saw in the cemetery,

will it ever make it back to the lake? Should we have helped it,

lifted it shell & all? How did you get here, anyway—

stirring me like a photovoltaic martini. How classic. How recklessly cliché. 

Kim Addonizio