Chamomile
I dreamt last night of the stubbed toe. On my way home from the election, I stop at the smallest bank. After I step inside, I yell somewhat loudly: This is a stick-up, everyone put your hands in the air right now! The head teller is a woman with purple whiskers. She says: Sir, please keep your voice down. The other patients are trying to sleep. I sneeze a few times and want to apologize for my holiday allergies, but I do not assault her. She seems very touched by my firearm. I agree to hand him over as long as she takes me to the safe where they keep the money and the sandwiches. I had not yet had any lunch but I was not hungry for power. She takes the pants off my gun and I say: Ma’am, please, not here in front of the other customers! She says that all the patients will be dead soon and takes my firearm into the back office. I think she’s a terrible nurse and I listen to her moaning and hiccups for some time before I remind her of the money. No sandwiches. One of the customers looks like my father before he splintered. I promise to help with his deposit slip once he finishes treatment. The head teller is covered in sweat and motor oil when she opens the office door. She says that my gun has gone on holiday to Bolivia. Everyone leaves, of course. In the main safe there are many stacks of money. The nurse asks me to remove my shoes. I explain that we aren’t really that familiar with one another. She starts bagging up all the cash and I ask her where the gauze is. She looks at me like I can’t even play the kazoo. Now that I’m barefoot, she stares at my smashed toe. Sir, I can’t have you bleeding all over my unit. You’ll infect the other patients with your chamomile! Please, all of her patients are dead. She can’t even count to a hundred. Back home, Laura Ingalls Wilder is waiting for me in the kitchen. Apparently, it was a short trip, because she deuces me in the back of the head with my gun. So much for loyalty. When I awaken, Laura is doing horrible things to me. Clearly, you are disinterested in the specifics as you’re still at the hospital-bank and you didn’t help me to find any gauze. If you’re not already dead, you probably still haven’t finished the deposit slip. The blood from my toe has filled the room and Laura Ingalls Wilder is blowing up an inflatable raft. I ask her if she would like a cup of tea and she cuts out my imaginary windpipe. So much for innocence. I did not know she was a pilot. She says that all modern bankers are and I think: some nurses should never leave the prairie.
Animatronics
I dreamt last night of moving walls. A little less than a decade, I sit in a dark room and listen to the four geese sing. They are singing about the railroad and I’ve been working too. They are singing about the rain and my face is wet too. I am surprised by how warm and slow the rain can be. My grandmother turns to me in the theatre and chugs like a burning barn: Why is your nose bleeding? Did I slap myself across the face when I wasn’t looking? I try my best to never close my eyes. I am a caboose and the geese keep singing. They are soft and sort of funny, like me. I am a mascot and the geese keep singing. Underneath the warbles, I hear the parts of metal and ice click like icy lightning bugs. The geese are machines. Underneath my pink skin, I am a machine and my nose keeps bleeding. Old Mother Possum sings about a man that will never come home. I ask the bugs inside my head if Bill Bailey might be available to come and save me. I wonder if he is tall and handsome. I wonder if he is soft and sort of funny. I wonder if, one day, I too will sing of America. How America Sings, and I am such a soft little ding-a-ling. My nose keeps bleeding and the walls move. The girl screams and the bobbleheads applaud. I say: Deborah. The sunlight outside pierces me and a tall man says: That little blonde boy has blood all over his shirt! I want to scream back: Deborah Stone is trapped between the walls. She is dying! I want to scream back: My mother’s name is Deborah, too. In a decade, she’ll be ash at the redwood’s feet. One Deborah is dead now. She is humming along with the animals of steel and fabric. She is slipped bones and a closed mouth. The other is in Mesa, her arms working all day on the railroad, mouth and veins open, her face a scrapbook canyon. I say nothing. My nose keeps bleeding.
Jason Davidson is a poet, fiction writer, and playwright. He’s written and directed over 200 works of experimental theatre and his one-act plays have been widely published. His poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in trampset, Hobart, HAD, Club Plum, Pine Hills Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Burningword, Does it Have Pockets, Luna Luna, and other journals. He lives on California’s Central Coast with his husband. Find him on Instagram at @jasonwriteswords.
Image: itsasmallworldblog.com
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Heavy Feather Review 