This Is the Brain, W.Todd Kaneko

Still, I can hear them in the kitchen

feasting on the carcass of a unicorn.

Thirsty gurgles of night against linoleum—

they jerk about the house unbalanced,

a broken ceiling fan and rattling spoons.

This is the glamour of the brain:

whimpers of blood on the blankets,

elfin footsteps in the rafters,

a greedy bite taken from the moon.

It’s no longer scary, the body

breaking before the brain. Sleep

paralysis is less romantic than succubi.

Less treacherous than the evil breeding

behind my ear. There are no such things

as hungry ghosts or Martian cookbooks.

No—that is the brain out of sync. This is

the body powerless in the grip of darkness:

invisible, my grandmother sits

on my stomach and picks at her teeth

with a sliver of horn. She belches garlic

and licks my neck. Soon, she says.

You will all die soon.