ALL AROUND MY BED

on this firm bed
spread with fading    multi-coloured quilt
strewn with sleeping cats
dictionary    journal    text for deeper reading

i sit
pondering each thought
as if i were an insect
    stepping back to view
a jungle-world of grass and grasping legs

yet here around me teems
a multitude of mites
busy eating flakes of me and cats

a spider drops from black cat's fur
blends into the room

and down beneath the carpet's crumbling underpad
beneath the stock of unvacuumable detritus
a cold conglomerate of cement lies rigid
oh so slowly relaxing into dust

down again
    the cool and sunless earth
robbed of roots and seepage
then down    farther
smoothly grinding rock
the floorboards of the city as she shifts

    more rock
a great slab sliding
incomprehensible in size
it rubs against its sister plate
and bends her under it
deeper
    deeper
the rock itself yields into sweat
searing    bloody magma
dives and turns and climbs
in silent    grinning    salamander swirls
and deepest yet
    the hard dead heart

as i sit
on this firm multi-coloured
multi-inhabited bed
stars stretch limbs of energy
trillions of miles through airless seas
holes swallow galaxies
worms bore through mammals' skins
hook inside their flesh
steep in life's wet richness
disassemble cells
liberate the currency of stars
once caught by chloroplasts and fed
to orchid
insect
nuthatch
cat

    cat

as I sit here
contemplating one vague hint of mystery
mysteries too numerous and vast to catalogue
reel and roar in silence

on
    and in
        and all around

    my bed



CASEY JUNE WOLF