Dollhouse will dim when he commands goodnight.Six chandeliers, nine candelabrum cede enchanted light.  All die but pillar, slight,  beside your bed, brick candle wax free bleedseight hours in a magician’s stead.  He leaveshis proxy flame, perpetual night light,a circle cipher in a canopythat maps good girl geography.  Respitered curtains, bridal lace bedspread, a wetembroidered pillow…

for Harry & Bess Houdini On a day of no importance: dark of winter, far from seances and anniversaries, at last he gave her message through a man who wouldn’t take a reward: answer, tell, pray-answer, look, tell, answer-answer, tell // a code tapped out in syllables, lettersacross the stage for his encore performed between there…

one by one they enter the front room, remove their shoes and take up in sofas and armchairs, they shake off the shale, clinker and mudstone in their teeth. Rowen. Sexburga. Boudica busy exploding out of her territory by farting over the biscuits, her hare snoring loudly in the folds…

From beneath a single word it came, Expanding from that burning, brightest thought. It ever grows and yet remains the same, Never to be felt and never caught. Slip it through an hourglass with some sand, Watch it on a sundial, or on a wall. Hear it coming forwards with…

Bumper to bumper, ten fat rows of tin caravans’ all-you-can-eat asses brandish neon unwelcome signs: NO MEN ALLOWED.                      Lilac dahlias flourish from beneath each wheel                     Paths painted with faint lines like yellow brick connect the doors                    and bold, out-of-tune hums to Mariah Carey windsurf the clean air daily.                                         Nightly the buff girls stand guard…

i was called in at nights (close during the day? don’t be silly)threading alleys with undesirableflag-bearers of jack and jameson gargling threshold sleepers for the betterment of commerce i was called in to renovatepostmodern patchupstemporally blurringthe bygone with the near-flungtaking a hammer to heritage for the betterment of commerce make me whole    creaked…