On Loneliness and Landscapes

It’s so hard to move sometimes,
tiny staircases floating and congesting
the air, a planet blocking the road.
The paralysis never leaves me, clouds
swallowing the dark ribbon of my body
and the moon dividing itself like an orange.
I hide under the open tent of a book,
burrow between lines of houses like crypts.
Won’t budge till the kites fly off
with the trees. You dazzle me with
your black-hat secrets, scatter the stars
like glinting jacks from your hand.
But there are windows in the branches
and too many eyes pushed into panes
and I slip and hover too close
above the water. Oh the inky moors that fog
in my hair. My dress a black bell
of tissue paper, billowing in the wind.
In the fields dogs barking
at television screens.
In the fields giant snails
sprouting their roots.