I Live With a Paranoid Schizophrenic

Sitting down beside me, you
cup your head in your palms and rock
back and forth to comfort the aching of the wire

they implanted in your head so they could hear
your thoughts & maybe assassinate you on the street tomorrow
i go to reach for you, but i know better

right now, three thousand miles away, sixteen hundred
Canada geese rise in flight from the muddy gray waters
of the Columbia.

Tonight I will sleep twisted in my sheets,
my digital clock blinking out the hours,
the scent of rain in my dreams

In your room, you smoke your rolled cigarettes with trembling fingers
one finger on the dial of life, one poised over the dragon's mouth
like him, the Dragon, you too are too tired to sleep


like cigarettes
nicotine fingers
wet windowsill.