An Angel, and an Astronaut Walk into a Bar
The night is a closed chest—
someone is standing inside
under its vaulted,
holy black cloisters…
two someones, and
another dozen: they jump
up and down,
up and down.
Up.
And.
Down.
And I angrily breathe
it’s not a goddamn bounce
house—a plangent sound
sandwiched between
a whistle, and a roof,
and I’m coughing
at the walls.
There’s a skipping
static of phlegm between the
archways—my diaphragm
is a disused sleeping bag now.
We sit up inside of it,
and those cloisters
are walmed white sometimes…
and those
damn kids won’t stop
their bitching up there,
and I’m banging
on the popcorned spackle
ceiling above—broken
broomstick, broken sleep,
broken me heaving;
filling the space up to
the brim, and I’m
standing inside it now
alone,
and I’m coughing,
and I’m whistling,
and I’m waiting to turn over.