Refrigerate After Opening
When I wake at last from a hundred-year nap,
my wife is still on the phone
attempting to reason
with the Disputes Department,
and our daughter,
the beautiful, black-haired barista
who lives in a distant city,
is finishing up a double shift.
Her back was turned to me
throughout my dream,
her sun-brown shoulders shaking
as if she were crying.
Was it the small table of ghosts
that so upset her,
or had she seen reflected in the metal surfaces
water birds stupidly stumbling about on land?
There's nothing more honest than failure.
The spruce tree may become a cello,
but the heart chokes on its own blood.
