The Museum of Sleep

I sleep
with stuffed buffalo
and King Kong.
Arrowed, buckshot, skinned and
tortured, these giants
roam silently down the hill,
dolls of my moments, buffalo
and apes.

Underneath the feet of the
buffalo and apes
are thousands of babies
crawling beneath the
covers of the dirt, creaky little voices—these are

unborn babies, non-
conceived babies, like
turnips in the brains of their
parents who live in
Wichita, Milwaukee,
South Bend.

They, in my sleep,
my nocturnal tank,
respond to my various calls,
my guttural mews, my roars,
my moans and my brays and
whistles.

Galloping, I cannot make them out
as I draw them on paper
in the dark room, the scribbled
head of sleeping.

When I wake up
I am filled with sawdust.
I begin to talk. Talking
is my drawing.
It wakes her up. And before
I can stop myself, I’ve said
a number of strange, disturbing things.