The Singing Pills

I spit up the pills

that look like pills,

place them back inside

the orange safety bottle,

place the bottle next to

vitamins, aspirin, glue,

then hit the backspace key

and delete

           the scene now

           chroma white and starry.

Evening retreats

into day and the light

           does not yet hurt.

I smile all day long

and erase the trance of fire

each time it erupts

(delete, delete).

Each of my dead

holds a torch

           inside me, bubbling

           up my throat,

           lungs gummed

           with creosote.

I reverse into the early

morning blankery

when the pills still

sing me to sleep,

           deep in the blue milk

           of oblivion,

           all of my wicks

           for the moment unlit.

The laundry in piles

absent of bodies.

Each version of myself

is a day collapsed

           in a flowered basket—

           half fog, half sludge,

           and twinkling.

My chemical sleep

ordered at the drugstore.

My pharmacist, my god,

my automatic refill,

           please, quell

           and quiet me.

I am an ordinary I

unfree from history.