The Surrealist Learns to Fly
Occasionally he wakes, finds
the cool cube of his room
delirious with colors: blaring
daffodils and rigid roses,
petals a soft, translucent red
like the inside of an eyelid.
By the window, a clock's
expressionless face near glossy skins
of magazines, a telephone
the color of frozen milk
or silence, the color of old.
He is melting, his bones
grown paper-light, they travel
over the bed's pale hills, the woman
who's come to wash him.
The ceiling is a landscape
bleeding white as he floats
through the muted winter sky,
a boundless symbol of nothing.
The woman draws the blind.
Copyright Credit: Jennifer O’Grady, "The Surrealist Learns to Fly" from Poetry magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Source: Poetry (March 1993)