I am trying to bend a mind.

Can I imagine the moon as a suffocating balloon,
ready to inhale, siphoning lungs from the earth –
which is a cardboard box of discarded toys,
metal and plastic. Or stars the eyes of a wolf-pack
in the dark world forest,
glaring behind spindly trees –
which are needles in a pin cushion. Just that.
Or rivers as paths guzzling swamped ground,
drowning the carcasses of roads that lead home –
which is a state of familiarity only.
Or bodies as a surface to sketch new ways,
tracing escape routes through veins –
which are tracks of blood –
which is cooled boiled water
dredging metal and plastic from a cardboard box,
while starry eyes take aim with spindly pins
and puncture flesh,
and the river path devours familiarity,
and sketches are cuts on a skin map
bleeding cooled, boiled, water.

– Maeve McKenna