Migraine Suite

Prelude
 Something is not right.
      A haunting quaver
 to the world. Your mind
  feels viscous, your body
      watery. The lights have dimmed.
 The sense
      of the smell
  of ozone.

Allemande
A greasy fingerprint on the lower right
      of the screen of the world becomes
            a tiny crescent of jazzy spangles,
                  expanding, growing toward you
                        like the titles on a superhero movie.
                        A takeover is in progress. You discover
                              you cannot see faces or sentences
                        in entirety. Focus on a single eye,
                  a mouth. When mouths speak,
            you cannot recognize the words.
      When you speak, the words
shirk and cavort. You are drifting
out to sea.

Courante
The neon scythe-
                                    shaped sparklers become the burr
            of a dental drill,
                        dull-saw shriek on hardwood,
all that is jagged,
                  splintered, pluck- tangled, zipper- snagged. Snarled
steel wool claxon, burnt
      skillet egg-ash, earwigs, asterisks. Sand
                                                                  in the eyes, a broken
            tooth, scraped frost, roadkill. You watch
this dizzy dance
                  behind closed eyes,             limp, an over-full dull
                                    pail of bolts.

Sarabande
Time, soggy paper,

thins into nothing. You drift

in a forever, existing everywhere

and nowhere, like God. You are still here.

      You are still here. You are still

here. You realize the brouhaha is quieting,

      slightly. And slightly.

As the tide ebbs, you find yourself

      standing in nausea

like rank seaweed. Your middle

      expands to fill the universe,

scummy and foamed. Not a churning

      but a slow rot. Time is. Is

            time. Is

            stagnant.

Gigue
Retroflux.
The air is clear
but wobbly. You slink,
haggard and flimsy, poke
tentatively the corners of your mind—
is it over? Are all the termites
dead? You cannot yet laugh,
but sit on the porch, rocking,
smiling faintly, like Grandma.
You might decide
to live.

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