That Which Guards the Borders in My Mind

A nacreous though sanctimonious voice issues ledgers from the closet & a nacreous thought.

I tried not to describe the small man, gnome really,

crouched inside our fence in the backyard corner,

but here it is, in a long line:

I said to the gnome, “Gnome, I used to wonder what you did around here all day & after         having spent a day with you now I know what you do do around here.  You guard the     house when we sleep.  Perhaps you arrange our dreaming.”

I thanked him, & good for him, that gnome, looking, not at me, but at the air in between, a pearl of sweat on a Titan’s chest, a shark following lethargically the wake of the swimmer in the center of the sea.

For an exercise in ecphrasis, air the blood.