Buckets

Knives made out of blue metal
cut the raw meat into strips and
separate them to different sides
of the board. Tin buckets are scattered
all over the floor, and a red fish jumps
between the few of them that contain
water. A song is played on the stretched
out gums of an old lizard. The sounds it
makes are a lot like a collapsing row of
dominoes. You told me if I ever woke up
here I should check out the way it
moves when you tap on its jar.
I have wandered through the corridors
where hands, with long fingernails, reach
out from the walls and try to hold you back.
There’s a person laughing over the intercom,
and it echos all the way to the start of
the dream. You can’t ever fully replace the
things we build in our heads for ourselves
alone, but they can make everything else
so terrifying we won’t be able to find it any
more. Go there to that place where time
is just a spectator that can do nothing,
and mold the shifting ether into morning.