Eyelids

For now, the coyotes breed. They disturb the trash. They kill the smaller breeds kept as lapdogs. The gardens shrivel because of drought. Some passers-by remember when October stung, because of chill, rusted nails. The toddler boy screamed; they had taken away his toys; he had tried to eat blue and plastic. Thirteen trains and their destinations chug along desire, and all of them are slippery, erect. Now that the toddler is eight, he boarded the caboose, and he slept in a rocking hammock above cases of gunpowder. Eyelids have a way of revealing desire. Sometimes Eros is a green wool sweater on an iron hanger. Sometimes, what you have been waiting for: red stage, empty armchair, and the one who abandoned you for the wind, or a balcony, or better hand sanitizers. None of that makes you less earth, less stone, less fire, and less sugar. But the other voice hinges on doe slippers, finely ground coffee, the pen still jutting from the robe’s breast-pocket.