Alarm (2)

Sometimes a woman sets off alarms
with her spine. Like my mother as she walks
through an airport's metal detector—two
steel screws in her back. Sometimes I think
and think past a neighbor's dry cacti
and a sprinkler starts up. I think someone's
roped a scent hound to my hip when I pass
the live oaks on my lawn and the Spanish moss
shivers its silver fox tails. I sail from room
to room in my red hair and trigger
the smoke alarm's sounds. I've found
no cure for the world's reactions. My mother
carries an X-ray in her purse—for proof—
when she flies. I think my dead grandfather
sloughs Irish cells through my scalp. I've
got proof. I've got a mirror that sleeps
through the night, then rises hungry. I've got
freckles that darken in summer and chart
the route to a sunken city. Its horses
swam off years ago. All the Luna moths
in the lampshades drowned. The pile
of stacked cedar someone left has soaked
through—too wet—but as my breath draws
closer it shifts, begins to smoke.

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Copyright © 2011 Anna Journey All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission