All Tomorrow’s Parties

A diagram of thrumming pines scrawled in whiteout on a whiteboard/ when you’re walking directly into a headwind/ you stop existing/ in a stable sense/ everything is always spinning/ even the dead do/ I walk into a party in a too-small room/ in the basement of a burning library/ plates of garlands and papaya flesh/ the place crowded with scribes and candelabra/ everyone inventing language/ on the spot/ I trip to the center of that room/ ankles bleeding/ dragging a trunk of cotton balls and dead moths/ everything spills wall to wall/ and the flow of breath from every mouth blows/ wings and stuffing/ back out until all the words are frail/ painted bodies falling apart/ to the music of flames and crushed buttresses above/ I forget how to introduce myself/ my name is broken pillow/ my name is inferno/ my name is Acherontia Atropos/ that is/ death’s-head hawkmoth/ I enter rooms to say the wrong thing/ to stuff my teeth with no  birds  singing/  make an exit flapping through the haze