Daydreams Are for Counting

The bottleshop at the threshold of town

squats like a teal-painted barn

for if the town was just a prairie,

and at that barn would sit a little lamb

on one of the parking stumps, 

in front of which a car would normally face

and be relieved that, now, it can look nowhere.

The lamb sits with the mufflers still hot

and spectates the fuel stations just to the left

and the tiny daisies 

salvaged as a favor by the crawling spring.  


The uncomfortable summer wind crayons her fleece

with a rush and then a slow morale.

At the bottleshop barn, nothing is made secret.

The snarky, bubble-retro hang signs 

that can take up the width of a door

with just a word.

Beer. Lottery. Soda. Smokes.

because, as everyone knows, 

the best service is being able to tell something 

like you know it for sure.

Little Lamb tips the cream soda can 

towards her cupid’s bow and

picks up the pink kitchen grease 

long melting on her upper lip.

Her tired eyes and the sun.

Little Lamb would be allowed to daydream.

On the dusty freeway ride last week,

she sat with the air in the vehicle dry

with a blank dreariness.

Out the mud-spotted window, 

she catches a glimpse of a burial site,

sprinkled with yellow and pink petals

like fallen letters.

Next to it, a seasonal berry stand.

She comes home on some days and washes her face

with just the warm tap and waits for the scrubby 

redness on her cheekbones to subside.

Little Lamb walked in yesterday to the bagel shop

that, no matter when, is always busy

being filled with goth white people

wearing authentically-faded tees and 

septum piercings clogged with nameless fingerprints.

The nice blonde girl probably with a name 

like Sugar or Candy with the nippling tie-dye tank 

and just the stoned guy named John.

The pre-job and post-job bustle

off-shelving the sandwiches called something cute like

The Tahoe or The Yuba or The Yosemite

with the pungent sprouts.

The bagel shop that sells the bubble tea 

made of colored dust from a pouch,

and amidst all this Little Lamb would think 

Maybe I will fly further.

Maybe she will fly further into this

compaction of idiosyncrasies 

and, like everyone, be a drifter.


Little Lamb after a shift will palm,

kindly with an ask, a fortune cookie

packed with, not one, but three fortunes 

that a machine error pinched in a clump, 

leaving even the blank

paper strips with more wordless ridges.

Little Lamb with Sam Phillip’s How To Dream

in her ear like how it sounds in Gilmore Girls.

From her bed, she can see the black tapestry

of mellow-night trees with the tops like a lacy fringe,

like it was meant for a face.

Across the cool window is a faraway house

with a baby lamp still out on its porch. 

Little Lamb some mornings would want to lay 

with her back on the green 

in a type of nirvanic calm that she tells everyone 

the jade bangle on her wrist makes possible 

when it really is just painted glass.


She would nest her head in the grass until, 

if she waited enough years,

the daisies lined the pockets of her jeans and 

crept up her sleeves and pant legs until 

the daisies are the only things still clinging.

Die in this sunshine.

On signal, she would board the night train.

She elbows her lap, 

cream soda can to chest,

her sight in line with the underbelly of the passing, 

pollen-streaked trucks.


On the side of the road in front of the bottleshop barn,

Little Lamb recalls what it is like to see movement

from a view of one not moving 

but feeling real.

Previous
Previous

Dinner at Ice Age

Next
Next

Countertop Film