Ambulance Scene

Adam Chesler

a cold slithering light from outside this ruby temple

hits me on nights i can't hold my withered hands

up to the glass sheets in this crawling crawling

dead stones hanging in the corner

Jesus and his arms open, branching

the falling down crashing on my bony laser chest

holding the bottle my face reflected

lipstick smears on a candle nearby

burning your lost smell, a riddle

i haven't heard in much time

slashing down under linoleum

in the wood my molecules are festering

gathering the loose tombs she watches

the layers peel back skin of a crushed egg scattering

semen stains here and there in

the whole mirror i can't move back

i can't run or fly out of the car i can't hide from the dream

she drives the ambulance sitting backwards

facing my new cleansed pile of bones

and speeding past miles of open land and crushed sky

the city limits sign appears

hopeful for the bed we'll share

underneath the scars

underneath the freshly-peeled flesh

we'll assemble souls and scatter them

in our broken heartbeat of crawling

crawling the moonlight over on hands and knees

there, in my glass sheets

i swallow the world

and never wet the bed

there, in my oblivion

i hold her heart, the heart that beats

her heart, the thick muscle battered

in my palms, throbbing a tickling unknown since childhood

there, in my blank hospital room

my hands can't stop shaking and i smell

the new cold of November and all its leaves

a glowing gold that falls on my cracking skull

and i laugh again,

hoping to wake up with Jesus and everyone

in the air, visible, in the air

floating in a nebula across the darkness