Daddy-Daughter Waltz Beheaded, on a Burning Earth

by Alexander Gallagher

Big red shine, I can’t imagine you are an accident.
I want to touch you on a red tarp, on the only
green rock in the world. You: huge, spinning.

Terrible, like a bubble. Your dimple louder
than words. I don’t know how that buzzing
sound rips your cuticle blue, but I like it. I like

bulbs. I like the water tower chained shut.
I like when you look like a stage full of green.
(And the green is so green, it’s excessive.)

I sleep soundly in your heart, which is a kind of wire
prison shaped like a muzzled dog. When will we
blockade the pentagon again? When will we wash

these tiny windows, our violin? You don’t touch
the instruments, so I pluck them all gently.
The sundial, the forklift, the horrible bird.

I want to sit on your lap, to climb the stage
of your unbeating chest and make my declarations.
My screaming head looks true to life, a lot of blue.

A man dances in circles with his rotating coffin.
Anything that makes a sound terrifies me. A knot
of legs terrifies me, but the smoke provides a level

of comfort. A space in the glass like an old screensaver,
where I can look for the joints in the walls, joints in
the box with four windows and a little me inside.

I want to put something on top of you. Beside
the fast river outside, you dress up in blue tiles,
like my mother’s. You look like an old friend,

a Pixar ghost, a hall full of ghosts. You only speak
men. I hate your mustache, but I love your red shirt,
and I leave in no hurry, toting my little coffin burning blue.