share


Sleepwalking through the Mekong

I have my hands out in front of me.

I’m lightly patting down everything

I come across. I somehow know the

banana shake when I touch it.

 

I can see myself from above.

As if on a video monitor.

Why?

 

I travel slowly down every alley,

across every rice paddy,

into and through every bedroom,

into and through every closet.

I am asleep and yet I am polite.

 

electronica

 

rain showers

 

It is always like this.

I wear a light brown suit.

When I come upon you I grope you

for what seems like ten minutes.

As you have noticed.

But I am excused because I am asleep.

It is understood I am harmless.

I am like a blind reverend.

I am like a politician.

A ten-year-old girl detains me

in the park. She carefully clips

each of my fingernails.

 

When I yawn the earth rumbles.

I pat cans in your pantry.

It is said sparks can be seen

coming from my briefcase.

But I do not carry a briefcase.

I am not like that.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is an American poet from Livingston, Montana. He is the author of Can You Relax in My House, Yes, Master, and Thin Kimono.

READ NEXT

Prize Entry

April 2015

I Told You...

Owen Booth

Prize Entry

April 2015

1. The Triumph of Capitalism   It was the end of the cold war and capitalism had won. Everywhere...

Interview

May 2013

Interview with Darian Leader

Kishani Widyaratna

Interview

May 2013

A practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst, Darian Leader is one of a dying breed. It is no overstatement to say that...

Art

March 2013

Strangely Ordinary: Ron Mueck's art of the uncanny

Anouchka Grose

Art

March 2013

Since the Stone Age, people have been concerned with the problem of how to represent life.   Cave paintings...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required