The Brooklyn Rail

Keeps a dream notebook each morning
And knows the age will care.
His mother has wings and antlers,
And the murmur of war reassures him
That his reading of Sade is correct.
He gets to the room before blood is splattered
And lies in the dark till noon,
Then the blinds come half open, and down in the valley
A nuclear family lives up to its name.

Vast labia frothing with hairs
Cross the sky, and machines
For extracting fingernails and setting children
To work on their siblings.
It is all attractive, horrible, appropriate,
And over before lunch.