I Love You, Rod Serling
Eve Kenneally

---

It is morning, the animals
are bleaching. Let’s go ice fishing
even though nothing’s
frozen. No one thinks this
cleanly. Speak pointed
Spanish between pages
& I’ll be an unlined
carina wife. Sea poison trees drown
bats. How ‘bout it now, Johnny Red?
A rhyme pool cooled
off by a century of sleeping. Un-
clench those braids of sea
holly, desert peas dissolved
in syrup. It makes me cold
to stare. And it’s true I don’t
want to look               
like a painting,
that every state used to be
Ohio. Knots of panic
silver & stay. C’mon rummy let’s do
this left-handed. Didn’t you spill
coffee on me. Don’t you know
rubber rooms. I spent the whole
night turning my lights on
& off. Stop lighting
St. Mary candles, they smell
like plastic & she can’t
hear you. The reason you can’t hear
me is because I’m outside, drawing
salt out of eggplant. There might be
a German word for that. I left my
teeth in my pillow, my nails
in your shoes. You’re as good
with a gun as you
ever were. Wouldn’t it be
a shame if we walked
til our hearts
burst, carrying
all this gold.