[escape schism]

I am looking down at the shell of the sea
triple-stitched, folded silk along the wave
of a dolphin-road, Fantasia-feathered dancers
drifting down like apple blossom.

They knit and drift, the ballerina girls
on great fronds of tulle, oceanic aeterna
razorbilled with seafoam, tiara'd with salt glass
sepulchred in their driftwood thrones.

But I am barely alive. Great tides
of dream-clouds wrench polar bears of thought
away to a land of blueberry-peach boats,
hot air balloon sundaes, snow-glitter-whips

and sandcastle summers. Better to stay there,
lemon-edged with cinnamon knights
and aurora-moon daisy-chained pearl-crowned sea dancers
than to wake one more moment

into bloodstained darkness.