--EVEN AS YOUR EYES ARE CLOSING

                                                      Family Circle

My tongue is in shambles again, and my ears wear a ghost parachute so that everything I hear is slanted rain. 

No one seems to notice that the coffin in the kitchen is beginning to reek, though the counter and chairs look disgusted. 

The last time I had a friend over he swallowed his tongue and turned into cellophane.  Neighbors keep moving to other planets.  Children disappear all the time around these parts.

Dad recently repainted the outside of the house with coyote blood, but every window is stitches of black masking tape. If there’s a sun out there, we don’t know it.

Auntie keeps floating to the ceiling, banging her head on the spackling, breaking every naked light bulb.

My uncle drinks something clear and syrupy, burping up a flock of dead moths. He molests the razor strap by his hairy thigh, laughs and says it’s someone’s turn to impersonate himself, someone else’s turn to dial 911 backward. 

Everyone’s nervous because Mother wants a new set of eyes. Her fresh pair of choppers gleam like Half and Half. Older brother hasn’t opened his mouth in weeks.

Yesterday my sister taught a butterfly the alphabet in Spanish.  I may have made that part up.  Sis no longer lives here, unless that’s her in the casket.