In my most recent inventory I found that I cannot wear the new boots, the beautiful things are useless to me. I cannot wear the new blazer, the sleeves are a disaster, the bickering ladies have ruined my flowy black pants the pockets having shrunk up suitable only for finger babies.
Here is the blue cardy and here is the pink cardy and here are the eight-thousand eight hundred and twenty-two babies, babies large and babies small enough for match boxes I am superimposed upon my mother’s long-lost paper dolls, the tissues she whipped up and tossed to me in the backseat all the long and endless way to California, ballerinas all.
My brain is heaving, thirsty I think. I am backing off a pill they say is addictive. Maybe this is the root, the tuber, vicious turnip, gabapentin. Stepping down, titrating, I can’t stop falling. The bed will catch me the deep well of pants will rise up. Pants are the backbone of everything. Pants are the uniform.
I once forgot my lithium for two weeks, felt I was a marvelous paper-thin electric cord traveling up and down the walls of the house clad in fashionably paint-splattered dungarees, tacking up photos banging the dust free of the curtains, seeking out the nails in the tar paper is anything loose is anything out of sorts?
Here is a worn-out striped shirt that I hate but still wear, if I cannot find a way to cut it loose I fear it will outlast me blue upon blue upon green I find myself plagued with yellow its constituent parts memories of vinegar the kitchen table splattered with color Easter morning staring up at the fox fur with its legs still on, its beady eyes staring down at me, its peculiar mouth, I trace that tiny nose like it’s a map of another world if I had inherited furs I would wear them if I lived in a cold climate I would buy furs and I would wear them I have often thought of my head as a beaver hat I have often thought of my body as a shipwreck overrun with baby seals.
The pile of clothes is dwindling, what to donate, what to keep, what to trash. The yellow has gone quite sick the wide expanse of my trunk holds the heart of darkness my vented shirt my pith helmet my head is too big inside it’s a soundstage of grand proportions we begin filming at 5 AM we begin lunch at 2 PM we resume filming at 2:15 PM when you’re strung out you float above the surfaces you encounter when you’re strung out you become prone to the hallucinations of this dark continent this traveling catalog this neverending river full of rafts full of babies bedecked with ribbons.
It is time to wash the Irish fisherman sweater. I’ve had it for years the wool is scratchy but it keeps out the rain. The color compliments my eyes and I discover that I am still thirty-five if I squint and strike a pose. And batten down the loose hatches. I will wear the boots. Shoehorn. Bear grease. Elbow. I will pull them on and take my sex-bed head somewhere wide open, the prairie maybe, its wild chickens mad-dashing to the station wagon door.
I will keep all the hats to accompany the head on its travels, its out-of-body, its wicked trips. I will keep only the flats and the fancy sneakers there is no need for airs I will repaper the interior of everything when I’m finished interrogating the dolls all lined up against the wall not a single one with its cryer intact not a single one with an orange juice bottle I have brought in the pinking shears I have began the dismantling process the yellow hairs will be stored in the lower drawers I will lie down the eternal length of my mother’s lap wrapped well in fur while the tableau in my brain switches reels and yes. Here are the key-grips and the starched collars, here is Escalator A spilling into the yellow throat of the trunk the edge of the world the turtle’s back the elephant my brain has grown too heavy I can no longer hold it in I must dismember it and pack each piece into a sweater box and send them away.
