dream

All in new jeans
dark stiff denim two men
one a son of the other
leaving to china to live in the jungle
on an island
just to be.

These I don't know but familiar.
I never met a man in new stiff jeans.
Some with tags still on
proclaiming how thick, how thin, how tall, how short.
Stickers unseen
like no body's business.

All here exude nervous nonchalance.

I am here to learn
how to
what is
prayer

One cursory look in my bag for drugs
fearing forfeiture of this place in tatters
with an armchair for the father,
who sits on the steps
the rest divided into plots,
string strung between dead sticks of trees.

Some growing, others empty
maybe planted but sterile
either way
nothing there

On the wall a painting
i know it well as though i painted
but i never saw it til now.
A cezanne, a monet, or maybe starry night
"Peter sold this house"
I know this picture well
the house as blue as starry night
but windowless admits none of this.

I know someone here but
I don't know who
only nervous scared to be found out
One to China, another for drugs
no one else speaks.
We, none, have mouths and they, no eyes

On the wall by stairs
where one father sits steps
the picture unframed.

I learned something but I lost it.

Painting writing
growing things are important
but i don't know if they're prayer.
No one told me anything about prayer
maybe it's that I never asked
but why i am here?

still
I play with red-striped soda straws, nervous.
They don't like me playing
I quit the sraws, they're gone.
The noise cuts deep and through, bloodless.

I want to ask
I want to know.
I never do.
Not yet.

I think we may meet again
maybe then I will be
able
to ask.
Maybe then.