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Fuzz Corridor
i’m reading a story now about
being sleepy about soap &
toothpaste & night things
night land the night stand
covered in candle stubs
i’m making a dream path through the book--through
empty mugs drying teabags
shredded kleenex cat pills lotion dribbles
incense ashes
dust & dust
i’m in layers of wool
pullover pullover cardigan
horsehair hoopskirt bustle corset shawl
keeping it at 59
degrees that is
warm for a victorian
the people who built my house were
never ever nude
& they still sleep here
there is nothing to do
this late at night about
some piles of books or papers or
the margin of dust & fuzz & hair
--human, cat, or other--
on the floor along the walls or
food that’s been in the fridge for 3 or 4 months
whatever’s behind the toilet
belongs to the earth again
to the sleeping victorians
parts of this place are
not even mine
i’m walking a narrowing corridor of fuzz &
the corners get older & deeper & thicker &
dreamier & more secretive
the antique darkness spreads into the center &
this is it
the only time i have to understand it:
on the edge of it & i’m
so
sleepy
Jane Adam
I started writing poetry just a few years ago in a moment of desperation. I got
surprisingly decent results, so I kept at it. Lately I've been trying experimental
techniques, letting different voices come out (whose voices? From where? I'm
learning that now!) My poems appear online in Remark, Poems Niederngasse,
The Beat, and Half Drunk Muse, and in print in Chiron Review and Slipstream,
whose editors nominated me for a Pushcart Prize in 2003. I've lived in Buffalo,
NY since 1981, and I've taught freshman English at nearly every college in the area.
