It is a summer evening.
The yellow moths sag
against the locked screens
and the faded curtains
s** over the window sills
and from another building
a goat calls in his dreams.
This is the TV parlor
in the best ward at Bedlam.
The night nurse is pa**ing
out the evening pills.
She walks on two erasers,
padding by us one by one.
My sleeping pill is white.
It is a splendid pearl;
it floats me out of myself,
my stung skin as alien
as a loose bolt of cloth.
I will ignore the bed.
I am linen on a shelf.
Let the others moan in secret;
let each lost bu*terfly
go home. Old woolen head,
take me like a yellow moth
while the goat calls hush-a-bye