John T. Leonard
The Screaming Game

The source of my sanity was an invisible summit.
This is how every night began, a dress rehearsal
for smoke-signal operas and running shadows.

You played it to the bone, hung pictures on the wall,
read about the Flowerpot Technique and died a little.
Outside, tiny alligators were flying around a rock garden.

That’s when the sun-setters escaped, turned stone fruit
into lilac flavored liquor and called it a second coming.
I traced the cracks in my hand, looking for a map to you.

It’s like the land flattened itself at night and drove straight
through us, like I was a phone booth buried in the snow,
like you were a wren that someone nailed to a bar stool.

Can you imagine anything worse? To be haunted by yourself;
by your own spirit looming over you? To see a shadow in the foyer
when you were a child and know you’ll never be alone again?

O, just make two sculptures of us already! Turn us into ribbons,
black as the dirt roads far outside this city, paths that lead
to towns where all the scarecrows come to life at night.

Everything you’ve seen and it still hasn’t changed your eyes. Gin and tonic
spilled on the herringbone floors, a pale light as we finally fall asleep.
Whatever happens, just remember that I really wanted to earn this life.