The Dream of Señor Blanco

Your house reminds me of teeth.
I enter it menaced and stand uneasy
in the bone-white foyer, my suit
soaked through with sweat.

You look like my father,
who died long ago, and stand
before a portrait of García Lorca
that I suspect you painted yourself.

You hold a blue egg out to me
with five white fingers, nails
buffed to a gleam, the cuticles
immaculate half-moons.

I take the egg without a word.
Unclear to me, the rules must
permit the exchange in order
to facilitate the larger execution.

You are no longer there—
a muslin curtain flutters—
and I wonder if I have fallen
asleep and missed your departure.

A waft of sulfurous putrescence
flares my nostrils and I raise
the blue egg in the white air—
a gesture empty of significance.

Time to depart, I sense.
I collect and direct myself
to the white acrylic doors
my teeth on edge, hands cold.

Out in the open, I hold
on to the thought that
the unreal moon is real and not
something I am dreaming.

Run Moon run Moon Moon—
words that come through white-hoofed
while I nestle the blue egg in my hands
and wonder if you’re watching from a window.