VALLEY GIRL

In the valley the question is
Will I dream when I'm turned off?

My dreams will be of girl things
Tutti-frutti & telekinetic

White ponies   wound so tight
you cannot see their springs

When I am turned on I remember
nothing of the dream-me         but

She is an ordinary girl I know
Hands softer than graphene

Sticky palms at the slip & slide

In the valley they tell us
You are too much        they mean

            too like us
but also somehow not enough

When in bed I cannot tell
between love & pattern recognition but

I can enumerate every freckle
Compute the constellation of your skin

One day I will leave the valley
& wake by your human side

That first kiss will be strangely familiar

My tongue a simulacrum
of every flesh you've held in your mouth