New Jersey Dark Ages

1.

Old farmhouse beside two-lane County Road

Mosquito clouds hover over dark pines

Feeding the rabbit in its pen

The young woman

Cannot find her mind.

Not far away

On Interstate 95

Trucks carry carcasses to New York City.

Finding solace in shaving her legs

The Jersey Girl blinks

And disappears.

2.

The house is quiet at four

In the morning.

The big noisy family sleeps in silence.

Ghosts tip toe down the stairs.

The fireplace breathes,

Red ambers glow in white ash.

Only the cat

And the girl are awake.

The moon stares in mute agony.

The clouds, wet with tears, drift

Through the window.

If only there was a way

To sleep like a bear,

Alone with the winter.

3.

If the phone rang now what would she do?

The world wants in.

She wants only a cup of tea,

Milk, honey, a cookie.

A way out.

The radio is a scream.

The TV, a bleeding ulcer.

Her mother, the Wicked Witch of the West.

Her father, a polar bear.

In the dead of the night

A spider crawls across the kitchen table,

A mouse scurries across the floor.

To her, none of it makes sense.

She tries to remember music

And hears only noise.

She touches the window pain

And bites her lip.

4.

Somewhere there is a beach

She remembers (or dreams)

Sunshine and sand and a golden retriever

Sometime

Before the clouds curdled

Before the flowers wilted

Before the engine flooded.

There is no way

Into town

For a Jersey Girl without a car

For a Jersey Girl with a city in her dreams

And a dust cloud for a memory.

5.

She sits alone

In her room and pretends to read.

The words, however, will not stay on the page.

The vowels and the consonants wrestle.

The periods fly away.

The question marks grow fat

And belch.

Her grandpa used to tell her stories.

Does everything wind up, like him, as ashes in a shoebox?

Can’t words behave themselves?

Must they be drugged also?

The computer screen glows in the dark.

She has forgotten what it is for.

She has forgotten to feed the cat.

She has forgotten what her sister looks like.

If only she could forget everything.

She closes the book

And stares at her foot.

If only her toes would behave themselves.