Apparition in the Afternoon

The telephone lies in its incubator.
Voiceless.
Waiting for a wrong number.
Shadows crawl like roaches on the wall.
The disemboweled refrigerator groans,
the radiator gurgling
as if its throat has been cut.
Dust is disinterred with the furniture.
This room does not bury its dead.
I crochet cobwebs
and hang them from the ceiling.
Every day is a desert,
a vacuum sucking in my brains.
Time passes like a parade,
a soap opera reversing itself.
Time is yesterday.
I will live, haunting myself.

    Date Published
    1979
    Complete Poems
    364
    First Line
    The telephone lies in its incubator.
    Poetic Form
    open