IN WHICH I LEARN A LESSON OF RIGHT AND WRONG

Don't worry, I know things
about desperation. In the 90s I
was found guilty of repeated funeral
tourism. As a consequence
I had no face in every
dream for a dozen or more
years. As a tenant
of that visitation I called
the storm by name.
Nobody got drunk
on that laugh-track and instead
went into business minting
doll heads. There might be a way
I could call for you,
could get you your face back.
We would need to open
the channel. You will have to
trust me. Your daytimes reflect
an existential color
of weather, the intertidal. We never
know what the other is capable of. 

Family Videos

How long until the Bounce House
becomes discernible
How long does it take
to become intelligible
When will we fall through the floor
We are going to fall through the floor

We are a thing. We will become
a thing. You have made a horrible
masterpiece. The sublime dissipates
how we know it, how we
always have known it. What is
profoundly disturbing about that.
A prophylactic against
the mundane. A horrible mistake.
A trance against what is happening.
I have dulled myself against these
feelings appropriately.

I hope that you are in bed
when I get home. I am so glad
I am reliving this. I hope this poem
can wipe itself clean. 

MEREDITH BLANKINSHIP is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming fromHeavy Feather Review, Similar:Peaks::, GlitterMob, Sink Review, Finery, and Petri Press, among others. She is a recent transplant to Atlanta, GA.