Tucked In

Hay bales and flour sacks stacked tightly behind the overturned wagon, as if the scene of an accident had suddenly been attacked and transformed into a fortified final stand, a besieged jumble sale.  I have a habit--a knack, really--of turning the bodies nearest me, my family, my friends, my significant others (and their off-putting brothers) into the human shields that allow me to isolate myself from the wider world. They are the grain sacks, the oil barrels, the carcasses of sacrificial steers whose black bodies absorb the bullets valiantly, the lead getting lost in the labyrinth of their sinuous entrails. Peering (barely) over the escarpment, my lazy eyes absorb the mayhem as if it were a dream.  I imagine the war; I hear it even, when I am in the garden having my last cigarette, my private ritual.  But, distressed by the emotional indictment that comes ringing from my eyes, people protect themselves by protecting me.  There is always someone anxiously  sitting at the edge of my bed, ready and waiting to tuck me in.  Snug between the pressed, white memories, recalling fairy stories, songs, I know at some point the whole thing will be in flames.  For a brief moment, I panic.  My straitjacket unnerves me.  But before long, a little bit bored, I fall asleep (the old Wuthering Heights flickering on the mute t.v.).  Ten hours later, in the afternoon, I rise with the heat of our attic bedroom.  The tight embrace of the sheets has long since been torn free, the churning tornado of limbs as I swam the ink of dreams, as I rode the night mares--bucking, bareback--into the blood-dipped sun.