ALL AROUND MY BED
on this firm bed
spread with fading multi-coloured quilt
strewn with sleeping cats
dictionary journal text for deeper reading
i sit
pondering each thought
as if i were an insect
stepping back to view
a jungle-world of grass and grasping legs
yet here around me teems
a multitude of mites
busy eating flakes of me and cats
a spider drops from black cat's fur
blends into the room
and down beneath the carpet's crumbling underpad
beneath the stock of unvacuumable detritus
a cold conglomerate of cement lies rigid
oh so slowly relaxing into dust
down again
the cool and sunless earth
robbed of roots and seepage
then down farther
smoothly grinding rock
the floorboards of the city as she shifts
more rock
a great slab sliding
incomprehensible in size
it rubs against its sister plate
and bends her under it
deeper
deeper
the rock itself yields into sweat
searing bloody magma
dives and turns and climbs
in silent grinning salamander swirls
and deepest yet
the hard dead heart
as i sit
on this firm multi-coloured
multi-inhabited bed
stars stretch limbs of energy
trillions of miles through airless seas
holes swallow galaxies
worms bore through mammals' skins
hook inside their flesh
steep in life's wet richness
disassemble cells
liberate the currency of stars
once caught by chloroplasts and fed
to orchid
insect
nuthatch
cat
cat
as I sit here
contemplating one vague hint of mystery
mysteries too numerous and vast to catalogue
reel and roar in silence
on
and in
and all around
my bed
CASEY JUNE WOLF