Colette Chien

permafrost swallowed a house in my dreams

 

i woke up to the nightmare

of my house swallowed in snow.

in greenland we watch

floorboards fall through the fluxing ice

 

 / only the roof was left i 

wanted to crawl into the attic window

to smell the wood of it. 

i wanted to curl into the chest 

 

too heavy to lift / filled with quilts. 

/ when the permafrost melts, little

bubbles pop when they reach the

top of the lake nearby. 

 

we watch the gases go skyward, they

meet with the geese going south.

the geese say, 

methane has lives beyond any wads of old swamp on fire.

 

i know the frost wants to stay tired, 

asleep. be the feverish girl immobile, 

a frozen frog on top of a log. 

once fully awake, it's hard

 

to go back to sleep. you know what i mean.

a snow-sucked home is always met by

one tomorrow in a smokescreen. so the next night,

/ a fire swallowed a house in my dreams.

 

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unavoidable cavities & unexportable grass

(after camille dungy)

 

you ask if i speak for the zoo & i’ll tell you

while pacing under a plastic sun & sky / i

mused a square into expansion, danced

in it before it pulled itself back / 

 

rats scurried as i said / i speak for the tigers, 

the tigresses, the lions, the cat exhibit. i speak

in echoes that greet the starers & scare them, 

but from the time before they came... /

 

i’ve remained dazed in the dentist’s eyes,

anesthetized, canines scrubbed of chub’s plaque

& disease. i am sustained on meat which sticks 

between. so when i’m under, they scrape out rot & /

 

i scheme / of breezes on super hot evenings,

of sapid spices, an itchy back scratched on rough bark.

i know of longing & i know of foreign trees, 

i speak in the only tongue i know /

 

echoes / fill me when i wake. a slow blink

never brings back what was on the mind. you

in your rise from the brink of sleep, 

know exactly what i mean /

 

but it lingers, longer & stickier every time. 

you ask if i know of the concrete beneath me

& i’ll tell you softer ground is hard to find

when i seek out the moon /

 

it sometimes finds its way to my wall, 

still a weakling in its brightest phase.

when i seek out grass, raw & wavering, 

i am always told to go to sleep /

 

 

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