I swear,
on cold summer nights on Lake Manitoba
you can spit arrows from between the gap in your two front teeth
and watch the clouds explode like frightened balloons
as you catch white lightning between your chilled fingertips
cackling and shrieking like young boys that play with tempests,
drunk on dragon's breath and molten hysteria.
You can feel sprites and goblins breathing over your shoulder,
crunch lemongrass between your teeth and
exhale the nebulas of old stars,
uttering new life into forgotten souls.





I swear this place is our home.
Our home,
where we tuck ourselves in at night with fiery green curtains




stirring beneath our chins
and stay up dreaming under dusty streamers





with hand-dipped bayberry wax candles
whose sleepy flames ripple with the tides.









I sit.
A peppermint whisper escapes my lips
as I dip my palms into the pearly

depths of shadows that fill my plate.

I count…
One,
Two,
Three.

Consider the aurora for a moment.

Silence.

Then I exhale your name
in chilled raindrops



and at last I emerge
from my milk dream.