Nursery Rhyme from Another Century
All over the neighborhood
sleepwalkers sway
beneath glittering shelves of ice
dressed in cold light,
confounded by doorknobs,
by the sea in their dreams.
Televisions belly-up in the alley,
electrons stripped from trees—
Slow fallout of asbestos clasped
in the nursery walls, the grubby
fists of stars prick
dark like a rash from toxic milk.
Corrosion on spark plugs, leaves
whorled in the back seat
of a car oxidizing green.
And the nursery rhymes
echo in the dark like radio,
a world talking cheerfully to itself
in the endless repetition
of a pink cartoon
she begins to recognize
as the subplot of her life,
the subplot of happiness.
Soon, they say, our houses will be made
entirely of glass. We’ll dance like mannequins—
stiff and flawless
in the blue, fatal light of television.
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