A doll’s house on the street of my mind,
its tiny curtains drawn, the rooms dark and dusty,
the finger-sized furniture tipped over
after what appears to have been a drunken rage.
And with no sign of its glassine-eyed occupants,
the little back door kicked in, or nudged by a mouse,
the fourth wall missing in this theatre-of-play,
revealing a family’s unspeakable secrets.
And in its homey plastic kitchen, a wisp of smoke.
A fire coming. A cleansing fire.

I’ve imagined all this,
one reality as real as any other. 

I’ve been strolling in the mind’s bestiary,
thoughtfulness sawing its green lumber.
I’m on a newly discovered planet.
I’m a simile or silly allegory.
A gargoyle in a cathedral.
A fist through a pane of tinted glass.
Already I’ve died a thousand nights
and have crowned myself king of the gnats.
In my mind is a creamer of magical water.
I’ve put myself before all others. 

Why write of the real world,
its stems and stoves and fishes?
When I can live on the sun instead
and carry cities in my bloodstream.
I can paint the invisible.
Invent new numbers.
Marry the cutest little Neanderthal. 

Or better yet, I could start life over,
taking a step back from myself
as one would when returning to Earth
after light-years of interstellar wandering. 

I could make the same mistakes again
and not come to regret them.

A salesman going door to door,
selling bottled rain and sniffed fingers,
selling angel-scented handkerchiefs.
A salesman in an ill-fitting suit,
selling love-powder and paper aqualungs.
Broken manhole covers. A dent in a bucket.
Bio-degradable motion detectors.

The uninvited, leaning on your front door’s bell,
hauling a black satchel, carrying snake-hips
and vapourous handles. Hair dye for the dead.
A swastika of smoking ashes.

Who’s selling two absolutes for a dollar,
the semi-divine, and storm windows too –
lest yon tempest offend thee.

A nickel’s worth of starshine please,
porter, and make it snappy
A pound of roses for m’lady’s hair.
A half-case of chewed-over indecision.

I prefer shopping via wistful teleportation.
I like it when the stores are closed,
the window-dresser in the arms of dreaming,
the security guard asleep in his chair.

It’s midnight, ghost-shoppers
pressing their faces up against the glass,
in the thrall of wish-fulfillment.
Need and want fight it out in aisle nine.
The spirit of greed is rifling the coffers;
the least predictable of bargain-hunters.

Here’s a toy for your unborn children.
Warm your hands by this burning dollar
while I fetch us an electric stick,
plastic water, a disposable mountain vista.
I’ve bought us the invisible-made-visible,
a hatful of trouble, some skin for your flint;
the prices written in ancient Sanskrit.

On sale is something, I don’t know what,
what it does or is —

but I must have it.