Conjunctivitis

O fireflies, fate in a fire’s worth of open bellies:
we wander the afternoon air ardent in prose’s
possibilities, prick those savage eyes, prying
loose the dust of rumination, rudimentary room.

I want, she said, guarantees of safe death, napes
of naked irritated Chinese characters stretched
and scratched, loafers burning the airless street,
children hurrying home to catch the dogs falling.

There is conversation in these dreams of yours.
Singularities asking to be fed like throatless
lizards, bookish towers ready to fall, washed
women in wooden walls, making out alone.