ANNA JOURNEY

Clockwork Erotica: Why He Takes Off His Glasses When Telekinesis Fails

The white heather nods like automata
under my cypress. In my dream their calico
light in the antique theater is not enough
to dim the carved faces from two
wooden lovers—wound by clockwork
to perform sexual acts. The men
in the audience smell blackly
of cognac and bay leaves once
souped in my wet hair. I know a widower
sits beside me by the waft of nutmeg
tucked in his pocket—an apron’s secret
lavender ties. From the second row he fails
to break the grand crystal chandelier
with his stare and removes
his glasses. The artificial woman’s
moan hole, ovaled in planes of young olive,
blurs to his dead wife’s parted lips,
their spittled edges. She once raised—
with her breath—a steaming
loaf of rough-grained pumpernickel,
that whole black hill, cooled.