He says geese are the assholes
of the animal kingdom. Loud waterfowl
with a different voice than his own.
He says you sound like a goose when you talk too much.

So you turn his old waterbed into a goose pond
that lays plastic eggs with nothing inside them.
You silently dream of fake fingers screaming.

He shoves fake eggs down
other people’s throats as if
everybody’s throats are meant to fit

into the same molded sheet covers or else
the same shaped basket. You think his snake charmer uses
sordid sheet music. You also think piano keys can morph

into feathers until the bed flies up to the ceiling
then breaks down and drowns the floor, until outdated rotten
candy wrappers are ripped apart and sinking.

Some of his angry stuffed animals try to grab you
and drag you down too. Some of them try to swim
away from you. He yells at his stuffed pig to attack,

but the pig can’t swim. Unfortunately neither can you
and you temporarily forgot about the giant snake, backtracking
you into a horror scene from your past

in which a snake floats out of an old-fashioned
zoo swimming pool, plunges itself towards you
as soon as you fall asleep, tries to replace your comforter
with toxic venom, tries to constrict your tongue,

tries to mold your brain or at least make you
repeatedly question yourself. Despite your questions,
your hissing phantoms will bite back and recreate themselves
no matter how far below the surface you’ve descended.