Joanna Fuhrman
Broken Song With Light Bulb Tail
(for David Shapiro)

I was the sleeper,
dreaming of sleep.

My husband slept
in a soft shoe, but only

when the moon was red
or the shoe blue.

There was never any closure
at the end of sleep, just more sleep.

Everything was left
undone.

That wasn’t a blue jay
trapped in the picture of a tree.

It was the word
“blue jay”

drifting around
the runaway eye.

The dragon was sleeping
in the word,

curled up
like a kitten.

Some nights
we drifted in a raft,

over the ocean
made of eyes.

I loved all verbs equally,
as a good mother should.

In the house, I asked
the walls to testify.

One said “yellow.”
Another “yes.