How To Speak Dream

                              How to speak dream. I speak dream. What is sleep?
                              A tongue of water that makes seashells seem
                              To speak molluscan language. I speak dream
                              Endowed with speckled bivalves from the deep
                              Embedded in wet sand—not tampons, cheap
                              Medical waste with which our shorelines teem
                              Or flaccid pocket watches limp with steam
                              And hung on trees to sweat, perhaps, or weep—
                              Effluence from some meathole—but the sea
                              Cradles the infant language in its womb
                              And utters it upon the shore at night
                              And swaddles it in blankets white as foam
                              And in my sleep it babbles with delight
                              And cannot speak, and cannot speak, or see.

                              1/16/2014