c a n c e l l a t i o n

:  m a r i a   p a c e  

I'm having the wildest dream:
An actor portraying me is
Trapped in an indecipherable brown room
The doorway is vacant, visionless.

I observe, unnoticed, from a hidden spyglass
In the ceiling fan. Eyes spin round and round to
Breeze my imitator.

Pulsating shoulders glance up.
Shaken by the fan-cord, dangling,
Swaying like a lion's tail,
Our eyes meet in a pulverizing instant.

Self and anti-self, frenzied recognition
Culminates in introverted trauma.
Tooth and fan-blade sever -
The zebra, overlain on its own negative,
Fades into grey.

The twice-starved lion guts his kill.

[5/22/04]