the late night show

Photo by Fran Jacquier on Unsplash

All I ask
is that you watch me sleep

and touch me like
a knife —

My skull
my ears

foolish in their existence;
like cows

howling
to an empty sky

an obsessive inariticulation
with a voyeur, waiting on

some perverted
reply.

Close the door
on a warm July.

Tell me you taste it too
disease in the trees

and
in my mouth:

for I am sick
with heat

and memory.

The joyless negation
shining down on London

is the only thing that lasts.
Ridiculous

all this talk
about the future

when the only language available
is the burdened

etymology.

All I am trying to do

with this bloody mess
is to get back to the matter

which is

the rocking chair
the spanning fan

lying in my mother’s lap
asking

will you watch me sleep?
Watch over me

forever and ever

while the TV
hooks onto midnight.