Lines Written on Nursery Wall

           You bring a stalk of bamboo

                       to the flu room.

                       Hot pink Buddha offers

           some bullet-like pills from his plastic

fingers. Oh high above the pecan

tree, my dead grandfather

  walks Basil and Maestro, our two

standard poodles. One’s beard is oily

  from the wheel

of brie he’s stolen from

the kitchen counter.

       The world works. Even from here.

                  I can hear the buzz

                  of machines, the clicks

                             of pens, the secretary’s

                                          repressed anger

                                         (bites the inside of her cheek),

                              the weird light of computer screens.

        The world works wonders: the cashier at

                       Kmart rings up

                another self-tanning lotion. She rings

                           up August, the ocean, a string

                             bikini on younger flesh. Nude on bronze.

                                       Saltwater fish.

                 The sand is piled high.

                          It makes a wave over the pecan tree.

                            Soon a tsunami will wash away the house, nursery.

                                        Nothing left but a palm frond,

                                        white long bone.

                      Goodbye dog, tree, grandfather

                      with your elk-tipped cane.

                      The world works

          but not today. Not for me. Fever and the walls

                      painted with sharks and starfish.

                                There is so much aqua, histamine.

                                           Buddha, bring me another

                                           slice of pineapple.