“Try to Remember We're Dreaming” by Bobby Parrott
Enveloped in a velocity of titanium, teeth
burning tenderly as chrome grillwork
recently scrubbed and polished, my father's
Impala gulps crazy-huge pockets of air
into the fuel mix. So we do reality-checks
just to make sure we're still dreaming.
But when we trim our tail-lights for bed
the triple whirlybird of oblivion descends
to lift our other eyelids, hypnogogic
vestibule furnished in soft blue. Floating
flashes violet for chrysanthemum's sake
while the room slowly fills us. Nearly visible
in a breeze of contemplation, arms waving
green flashlights for balance, we step out
from the comic-book gun shop, our smiling
crocodile pajamas altered. Then we count
our fingers again, gain a reassurance
each time the answer changes. After we die
we'll roll any width of time into manuscript
form, Stonehenge it into a climbing paradigm
of no, and still won't remember where
our next class is, though already we need
exponentially more hyper-garage space
for our growing fleet of nano-collisions. Not
that we want to seem ridiculous, or even
in love, only to check our poem hat in the mirror
of one of those roadside boudoirs to adjust
its positioning. So if someone in our contact
list dies, we call them up without delay and leave
a voicemail made mostly of television static.
About Bobby Parrott
He/Him/His
Bobby Parrott is radioactive, but he's not sure for how long. This queer poet had a life-changing epiphany about the intentions of trees, and his poems now enliven dreamy portals such as Tilted House, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Rabid Oak, Exacting Clam, Neologism, and elsewhere. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his house plant Zebrina and his hyper-quantum robotic assistant Nordstrom.