at night the bed is a tunnel,
the kind you see in movies
when something bad
is about to happen. this is not a good place,
certainly, but not a bad one. dirty

in the way that home can be.
in the tunnel I turn myself over
like a worry stone. tumble
the brutal anatomy. usually
there is water. a city underneath.

google tells me that bodies
of water are the subconscious
and I am confused because
I have never seen myself in the ocean.
there is drowning, obviously,

but the subconscious is a daily
thing. a memory that no longer
makes me cry. endure, the verb,
the sick of ghosts. the brick sheets
are slick with it. maybe sweat.

this is the smallest badland,
trembling dust, tumbleweed
and black and white and grey.
there is light but not at the end.
a miniature sun that tastes like blackberries

near morning the walls line
themselves with bodies.
the blackberry sun shines, their faces
all the same. this is what a mother
might call feeling down,

a grandmother the blues.
nothing bad has happened
here in a long time. the tunnel
turns, the real sun rises. nothing
will hurt me in my sleep.