Scrid
If magic doesn’t basements flood.
Avoid attaching,
warns my therapist,
when I predict flooding.
Instead,
observe your thoughts
which are like clouds, no?
In an exaggerated Maine accent,
she leans in, feeling clever.
“If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.”
*
My thoughts have a voice that is not mine,
a gravelly baritone, a man married to his pipe
who lobsters through the brutal Maine winters.
Sometimes, on the water, says the voice of my thoughts
that is not my voice but are - I think - my thoughts,
You’re pulling pots in a spot of sun, when all around you, rain.
*
My thoughts can turn on a dime,
unlike opinions,
I tell my therapist,
who has a sweet face
and swears her grown kids love her.
*
One out of five children is hungry,
my thoughts say at dinner,
clearly not fucking around
since I’m sawing a bloody steak,
And many homeless adults are kids
who aged out of foster care - now,
don’t you dare let that steak go cold.
*
Guns are the leading cause of death in children,
mention my thoughts in response
to getting stuck behind a yellow bus.
*
Some thoughts do not have the fisherman’s voice.
Some are like a sudden smear of color,
a male cardinal at the feeder, gone as quickly as he arrived,
everyone who glimpsed him now acting
like they can communicate with the dead.
*
I wake every night at 2am,
a bullet between my teeth.
Don’t clench! says the dentist,
as the needle sinks into my cheek.
Or consider this $400 mouthguard
that your insurance will never cover
and you will never wear.
*
The dentist drills while Bob Dylan plays from a tinny speaker.
My thoughts suggest Dylan was a bit of an asshole,
too busy eclipsing the sun
to wash his pants.
*
Everything’s frozen solid today
but will climb into the 60’s and hover.
Unnatural for February,
snowmelt flooding basements.
But don’t worry -
think how good
the sun will feel on sallow skin.
Seize the spoils of war!
*
We’re just prefab houses, I tell my therapist,
dropped on crumbling soil,
manufactured following the accepted custom
of planned obsolescence.
*
I picture the windburnt man
who vocalizes my thoughts
removing his vinyl gloves,
tamping tobacco into his pipe,
hunched against the wind.
I see a wave coming,
he says, adjusting his oilers.
And it’s ‘uge.
*
Shut up and watch.
Stay curious.
Inhale to the count of five,
exhale to the count of five.
Hold the pause in between,
the tiny point of stillness
where everything stops
and nothing suffers.
*
My thoughts with the voice
that is not my own pulls a warm
hand through a rimy beard, says,
Sometimes you pull pots
under a single, livid cloud
when everywhere else, sun.