The Bread We Eat in Dreams

even magic cannot stop its need

to stomp and snap

to unzip order:

if you work a dayjob

wizard

boat captain

orchestra man

beware.

A priesthood called it down

like a moon

men with beards

men with money.

It wanted not love

nor the dreamsizzle of their ambition

but to know itself.

Tell me who I am, it said.

And they made icons of it in black and white

then oxblood and mustard and gloves

like the paws of some bigger beast.

They gave it a voice

falsetto and terrible

though the old school gods know the value

of silence.

They gave it a consort

like it but not

it.

A mirror-creature in a red dress forever

out of reach

as impenetrable and unpenetrating

as itself.