JERRY #8

Lara Mimosa-Montes

excerpt from “Somnambulist”

The clutter of dumb speech

I often speak causes me to feel

guilty. I cut myself off, often

prematurely. Sleep-deprived

people perform as if drunk:

slowly

They say sleepwalking is a hereditary tendency

which means Somnambulism runs in the family

Feeling light-headed. Like pollen now, drowsy.

Like my father, my uncle had beautiful strong white teeth, but one day, he disappeared, as if swallowed by a bed of leaves. Later, they found him with blown veins and blue lips

stranded


beneath the trinkets and the little pink slips

this is where I live: with my dream-lover,

my dead-lover, the sinner lady and the saint.

Though I have got to hand it to him


my uncle’s hands are not something

for me in my mourning to keep. His

hustlerdom was, yes, in his hands

but it was also hissing

off of his whole body

he couldn’t have

helped it his hand

someness I wonder what if

what happened

could have been

the fault of his hand

some

ness

if it was

what

then

Willie

if it’s dark

will you hold

my hand