|
Cheryl Snell |
|
Dreamscape with Archetype Opposite the door facing winter, you sit in a canoe, baling lake water with one tin can. Let me help, I say. I open an umbrella over your head. The wind inverts its ribs, draws eyes upward to the blackboard slashed with chalk, where contortions of dust dance in the absence of a sunken sun. We watch them collapse all the way up. In our room on the water, blue lines of the bed revise the light. The moon wanes, paler than it should have been. Bad to Worse It's summer. The wrecked Mustang, tires blown, sinks into grass foot-high and rubbery with snakes. A bottle rolls from under the front seat, its etched glamour encrusted with dirt. Still, it could be worth something. It's winter. The car has rusted through. Grass shagged with ice crunches under our boots as we aim toward the steadily arriving door. It's warmer inside than out, though the fire smokes last embers. The nine-foot piano presides over an otherwise empty room. There is a drop of Scotch left in the crystal decanter. We'll drink that first, before we feed the piano to the flames. |